Post Office fully in charge of social grant payouts
The Post Office has taken over full payments of SASSA social grants as CPS officially exits.
BY the end of business on 3 October, the SA Post Office’s system for SASSA social grant payment had already paid out 72 per cent of the month’s SASSA grants in almost 9,8 million transactions.
The SA Post Office (SAPO) formally taken over the full payments of SASSA social grants after the contract that SASSA had with CPS expired on 30 September.
“We are thrilled to be fully in charge of all social grants payments. Together with SASSA, we have put in a lot of work over the past few months to build the capacity of our systems and refine the payment processes inside our retail outlets and through the other payment channels,” said Lindiwe Kwele, SAPO Chief Operations Officer.
SAPO’s launch of a new SASSA card in July 2018 saw it embark on the mammoth task of migrating social grants recipients. To date, SAPO has migrated 6,9 million grant recipients to the new card. The new card gives recipients benefits that include a free cash withdrawal per month inside the Post Office, unlimited free purchases and three merchant till withdrawals as well as ATM withdrawal functionality.
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“The card swap process is proceeding as about one million people are still on the old SASSA card. We also believe we can win back the beneficiaries who chose other financial services providers during the earlier periods of the transition. We have proven that we can successfully pay SASSA grants and our product offers superior benefits and prevents any undue deductions from the money intended for the sustenance of the vulnerable poor,” explained Kwele.
SAPO also announced that its branches nationwide remain open until they have served all beneficiaries and where necessary, hours on Saturday are extended to 2pm.
It also rolled out biometric verification systems at its branches to enable SASSA beneficiaries to withdraw their grants with biometric verification instead of a PIN.
“This functionality is intended for recipients who experience challenges with a PIN and electronic banking services. The PIN reset data for the August payments run clearly demonstrated the need for this move and we thank the panel of experts for their input in this regard,” said Kwele.
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