Capitec responds to Home Affairs fee hike

Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie says that the bank will absorb the cost of the 6,500% Online Verification System (OVS) fee hike, and that customers will be unaffected.

In June, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said that the department would increase the cost to use the OVS from 1 July 2025.

The system is used by various service providers, such as banks and insurers, to conduct real-time ID verification checks against the national population register.

The system previously cost 15 cents per check. From Tuesday, 1 July, this fee has increased to R10, marking a 6,500% jump. There is also a new option for ‘offline’ bulk checks at R1 per field.

Schreiber argued the fee increase was necessary because the 15-cent charge had always been “inappropriately low” and had not changed for more than 10 years.

Meanwhile, the cost of maintaining and upgrading the system increased every year, leaving no way for the department to recover costs.

Schreiber added that some clients often exploited the system by overloading it and causing downtime, pushing other clients onto privately owned verification systems that charged inflated fees.

Despite this reasoning, the move drew fiery criticism from some clients.

Coenraad Jonker, the CEO of Tyme Group, was notably outspoken about the move, saying the new structure would be detrimental and damaging to the entire banking industry.

He argued that the increase to the fee would cripple businesses and would be a negative for banks serving vulnerable communities.

“This is not just a policy shift—it’s a regressive tax on the most vulnerable South Africans,” said Jonker.

The group sent an open letter to Schreiber urging him to reverse the decision, asking President Cyril Ramaphosa, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, and Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago to intervene.

Schreiber did not respond well to the letter, questioning how a bank worth $1 billion would be unwilling to spend R10. He hit back at the bank for “shameless profiteering” over the cost of the OVS.

However, TymeBank has since doubled down on its criticism, with its latest argument that the new fee will ultimately hurt the recipients of the R370 Social Relief and Distress (SRD) grant.

It said these grant recipients often generate less than R50 per year in income, meaning TymeBank has to subsidise their accounts as it does not charge fees.

While the bank argues that a R10 verification fee would make this model unviable, Schreiber has stated that it is not the government’s responsiblity to subsidise a multi-billion rand bank’s business model.

Capitec backs the increase

Speaking to journalists before his imminent retirement, Fourie said that Capitec supported the fee increase.

He said that the 15 cents fee was completely out of line when compared to the cost of accessing other essential pieces of data from other service providers.

Capitec, which banks more than a third of South Africa’s entire population with close to 25 million customers, will absorb the cost of the increase and clients will remain unaffected.

Fourie also agreed with the Department of Home Affairs’ reasoning, saying that increasing the fee is essential.

Without it, the department would need to look for other sources of revenue.

This would potentially see the department asking National Treasury for a larger budget, meaning the service costs would then ultimately be passed onto taxpayers.

Fourie said it is better that the private sector, which is ultimately using the service, pays for it.