Great news for African Bank customers in South Africa
African Bank is the sixth bank to join the Department of Home Affairs’ new digital Smart ID system rollout in the country, joining the country’s other major banks.
Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber announced African Bank’s participation on Tuesday.
Over the past week, the minister announced participation in the rollout by Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank, Absa and Discovery Bank.
The department had been courting the banks since April 2025 to join a new digital-first rollout of Smart ID and passport services to South Africans at large.
The director general of Home Affairs wrote to the CEOs of Absa, African Bank, TymeBank, Capitec, Discovery Bank, FNB, Investec, Nedbank, and Standard Bank, inviting them to join the move.
Nedbank, Investec and TymeBank have not yet indicated participation.
The department has set the goal of rolling out Smart ID and passport services to 100 banks by the end of the year, and 1,000 branches by the end of the medium-term (2028/29).
With the banks now participating in the programme, the 1,000 branch target could be hit sooner than expected, with Capitec, Standard Bank and FNB planning to rollout 840 branches in the next 12 months alone.
The new rollout it being made possible through the DHA’s new live capture system and back-end upgrades, which aims to cut parallel processes and integrate with the banks’ systems.
Under the old pilot, bank branches hosted satellite DHA offices, running parallel and duplicate systems to the banks. The services were rolled out to only 30 branches in a decade.
The newer system uses an overhauled “live capture” system that is rolling out to all DHA branches, as well as working to digitally integrate with the banks.
If the DHA does not have a suitable ID photo on file, clients will be able to visit a special Smart ID terminal in bank branches.
The branches will also capture details like IDs and biometrics and verify them against the DHA’s database in real time. Within weeks, the Smart ID will be available for collection at the same branch.
Using the newer technology and integrated systems, the banks will be eventually able to perform Smart ID and passport services digitally by adopting them onto their banking apps.
Ultimately, the DHA and the banks want to have a fully digital process with home delivery.
Big changes behind the scenes
Schreiber has not been coy about the drive behind the new rollout, making it clear that the aim is to stop producing and eventually discontinue the barcoded green ID book in South Africa.
The green ID has been flagged numerous times as a high risk document, widely used in fraudulent activity and easily forged through corrupt activity within the DHA.
The minister has set a short-term goal of ending issuance of the green ID by the end of the year, and discontunuing the document by 2029.
To accomplish this, the department needs as many access points to the Smart ID as possible.
This has led to significant work upgrading Home Affairs’ IT systems and back-end, including the online verification system (OVS), which had in the past seen a 50% downtime.
This was one of the biggest causes of the “system is down” excuses at Home Affairs offices, leading to long queues and reticence from the banks to get on board with system integration.
Now, the department claims that it is seeing a 99% success rate—giving the banks confidence that they can deliver the requisite services to clients.
The DHA has also often attributed its bank-end problems to state IT company SITA. However, regulatory exemptions now exist that allow departments to use other service providers.
Schreiber has been pusing aggressively for the digitisation of Home Affairs, and has adopted a Home Affairs @ Home strategy to accomplish this.
However, the focus is not only on digital services, with the department also upgrading traditional DHA branches and increasing its reach to rural communities though the DHA mobile units, allowing all South Africans to get access to the services.
Several of the banks, including Capitec and FNB, have stated that the first rollout of the new digital partnership will be to branches in areas that have been historically underserved for Smart ID services.
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