The Department of Home Affairs has officially launched its new Digital Partnership Model with nine branches of Capitec Bank and Standard Bank now offering Smart IDs under its Online Verification Service – with another eight branches slated to go live by the end of the week.
This initiative represents a major step change in the Department’s ongoing reform programme – Home Affairs @ home – which embraces digital transformation to remake how South Africans access identity and civic services, and represents a significant evolution of the long-standing collaboration between Home Affairs and South Africa’s banking sector.
Under the previous model, banks hosted miniature Home Affairs offices inside their branches, where clients were required to complete applications on the eHomeAffairs platform, make bookings online, and visit the branch primarily for biometric capture.
In contrast, the new model is fully digitalised. Participating banks connect directly to Home Affairs systems through a secure API-based Digital Gateway, allowing applications to be completed within a matter of minutes through the bank’s own service environment, without the need to fill in a single piece of paper.
Inside the 17 branches launching this week, clients can complete a Smart ID application in just five to 10 minutes, without having to make a booking ahead of their visit. This same service will be extended to every corner of South Africa over the coming year, as more bank branches are enrolled.
The rollout will take place in phases to ensure system stability and operational readiness.
The first phase that has gone live focuses on enabling:
- South African citizens, including qualifying naturalised citizens as well as permanent residents who still hold the green ID book, to convert to the Smart ID Card; and
- Re-issues for existing Smart ID holders.
Approximately 16-million South Africans still rely on the green ID book, which is widely recognised as one of the most defrauded documents on the African continent. Accelerating the transition to the Smart ID, the department says, is therefore critical to strengthening the country’s identity system and protecting citizens from identity fraud.
As the system stabilises throughout 2026, the department says it will expand the range of services available through the Digital Partnership not only to more bank branches, but will also enable first-time Smart ID applications, passport services, courier delivery, and applications through banking apps.
“Today signifies by far the biggest milestone to date on our reform drive to deliver Home Affairs @ home,” says Home Affairs minister, Leon Schreiber. “By embracing digital transformation, we are redefining what public service delivery looks like in the modern age. The fact that we have already reached this milestone after just 20 months in office, means that we are on track to deliver on our goal to invert the principle of how government services work: instead of forcing people to go to Home Affairs to endure long queues and manual processes, we are using technological security and efficiency to bring Home Affairs to the people, delivering access, inclusion and dignity for all.”