Good news for people who must replace their green ID books with smart IDs

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) aims to expand the number of bank branches where South Africans can apply for smart IDs and passports by 1,000 by the end of the 2027/28 financial year.

This is according to the department’s 2025/26 financial year annual performance plan, which also said that Home Affairs plans to add 100 new eHomeAffairs-enabled bank branches by the end of the current financial year.

As of mid-April, only 30 bank branches across South Africa had Home Affairs’ live capture functionality, which is necessary for smart ID and passport applications.

Most of these are located in Gauteng (17), with another five in the Western Cape, three in KwaZulu-Natal, two in the Eastern Cape, and three more in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, and the Northern Cape.

The first half of the year will be spent completing the system development and integration, as well as finalising the live capture rollout plan, which will detail the exact branches.

It aims to roll out the technology to 40 of the 100 branches by the end of the third quarter and the remaining 60 by the end of the fourth.

This goal will increase to 400 by the end of the following financial year and 500 by the end of 2027/28.

“The expansion of the DHA footprint to bank branches enables the DHA to leverage their infrastructure to improve accessibility, particularly in underdeveloped areas,” the department said. 

“Banks will invest in connectivity links, endpoint devices, peripherals—including facial recognition biometric cameras—and deploy dedicated staff to facilitate DHA service delivery.”

Banks first started offering live capture functionality in 2015. However, slow uptake has mainly been because banks cannot meaningfully benefit from the current arrangement and have to take a risk with service quality.

Frustrated with Home Affairs’ slow progress, banks asked the Banking Association of South Africa (Basa) to intervene. It helped to negotiate an agreement with the department to give banks more control.

Basa recently confirmed to MyBroadband that the public-private partnership agreement had been finalised.

Following this, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber acknowledged that the partnership had been limited to around 30 bank branches for nearly a decade.

Schreiber recently emphasised the importance of partnering with banks to expand smart ID card access to all South Africans by the next general elections.

He indicated there were still around 18 million South Africans to reach.

Banking app integration

In April, Schreiber announced the conclusion of an agreement that will enable banks to offer smart ID and passport services through their banking apps.

This forms part of an agreement with the Border Management Agency (BMA), Government Printing Works (GPW), and the South African Revenue Service.

“The agreement marks a new era that will fundamentally reform and improve the way that government works in the Republic of South Africa,” the DHA said following the announcement.

“In terms of the agreement, the service ecosystem composed of Home Affairs, the BMA, and GPW will leverage world-class technology capacity within SARS to revolutionise all civics and immigration services.”

The DHA said the agreement’s conclusion means residents can look forward to the following benefits:

• Integration of Home Affairs services with banking platforms to expand access to smart ID and passport services to hundreds of bank branches as well as banking apps.
• An option to select courier delivery of documents.
• Launch of a world-class Electronic Travel Authorisation system to digitise and automate immigration procedures to eliminate inefficiency and fraud.
• Upgrading the Movement Control System at ports of entry.
• Introduction of smart IDs for naturalised citizens and permanent residents.

“Work to roll out these revolutionary improvements is now in full swing, and the Department will announce their activation on an ongoing basis,” the DHA said.