HOME AFFAIRS TEAMS UP WITH MORE BANKS

Good news for anyone with a bank account app! The Department

of Home Affairs has announced that its services will soon be available to all South Africans with a bank account and their bank’s applicable app.

Home Affairs Miniter Leon Schreiber said its rollout of the live capture technology to bank branches is his department’s first step towards making service more accessible to all the people of South Africa.

“Our goal is to enable our services to be available virtually, including through banking apps, so that clients can access those services from the comfort of their own homes,” Schreiber said.

Getting to this point has been no easy task as it follows a lengthy agreement process between Home Affairs, the Border Management Agency (BMA), Government Printing Works (GPW), and the South African Revenue Service (SARS).

Thanks to this agreement, banks will soon be able to offer smart ID and passport services through their apps.

At this stage, it’s not clear whether these services would be available through digital banks like Bank Zero, TymeBank, and Discovery Bank, which don’t have branches to capture the process.

Schreiber didn’t give a clear timeline as to when the option would be rolled out.

Image credit: Banking Association of South Africa