The SA Post Office (SAPO) has launched the first of its cashless ATMs that will serve as additional payment points for South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) social grants.
The ATM is located within the premises of Kagiso Trading in Bojanala Local Municipality, Rustenburg, and is the first of more than 10 000 of these cashless ATM devises to be rolled out in spaza shops, township and rural areas’ merchants.
They are aimed at bringing financial services close to where people live as well as address digital, economic and social divides.
To use a cashless ATM, a SASSA social grant beneficiary will insert their SASSA card and use their SASSA card PIN to initiate a transaction, then elect an amount to be debited on their SASSA card.
If the debit is successful, the cashless ATM will print out two slips (for merchant and customer) confirming the debit. The customer will hand over the merchant slip to the spaza shop and, in exchange, the merchant will give the customer cash or goods to the value of the withdrawal.
Pinky Kekana, deputy minister of postal and digital communications technologies, comments: “The cashless ATM solution has multiple benefits for the society and will contribute in decongesting the current SASSA grants payment points. In light of government regulations to encourage social distancing to curb the spread of Covid-19, the additional 10 000 ATMs access points for social grants payments within the areas in which the beneficiaries reside is opportune.”
In addition to accessing social grants, customers will be able to use the cashless ATMs to perform the following transactions safely without the need to withdraw cash:
* Purchase pre-paid electricity;
* Pre-paid airtime purchase;
* Bill payments (for municipality and other bills);
* Insurance activations and payments;
* Money transfer;
* Ticketing;
* Transport solution, such as the loading of contactless transport cards; and
* Balance enquiries.