This week, the South African Post Office (SAPO) piloted the takeover of the cash payment of social grants for the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa).
On 1 August, SAPO started taking over the cash payments previously performed by Cash Payment Services (CPS).
Although technical glitches were experienced during the July payment cycle, SAPO reports that the August run went off without a hitch.
“I am pleased to report that the August payment cycle went without any major incidents in all of yesterday’s pilots sites spread throughout all the nine provinces,” says Susan Shabangu, minister of social development.
“SAPO made 100% cash payments at all its pilot sites. This modest achievement can be attributed to the expertise that was pooled from among major role players in the banking, retail and ICT industries, as well as the long hours of hard work put in by Sassa and SAPO staff.”
The system has been optimised to handle the number of transactions in conformity with the standards of the banking industry.
A few incidents were experienced where beneficiaries with new Sassa cards attempted to collect their grants at pay points but were redirected to ATMs and participating merchants. Beneficiaries are made aware that the new Sassa card functions the same way as any bank card with a PIN and does not make use of biometrics as a method of verification.
Beneficiaries who previously used a PIN to access their grants using the old Sassa card are requested to collect their grants from ATMs and retailers. From now, these beneficiaries will no longer be served at pay points because the pay point use fingerprints as a method of verification.
The new card also allows for three free cash withdrawals at points of sale and one free withdrawal at the post office per month, as well as free swipes at points of sale. It is accepted by all ATM’s displaying the VISA sign.
Upgrades to the system have increased processing capacity to better than 160 transactions per second – an improvement of more than 700%, and in line with banking industry standards.