Chaotic switch to Black Card: What Postbank says it’s doing to fix the problems
More than 2-million people still need to switch
Postbank is trying to switch millions of social grant beneficiaries to a new card. But the speed of the switchover is much slower than planned. Image supplied by Postbank
- More than two-million social grant beneficiaries still need to switch to the new Postbank Black Card, with the deadline recently extended from 28 February to 20 March.
- To speed up the process, Postbank has partnered with the Spar Group to add 200 service sites and trained tellers.
- Postbank aims to complete the transition by 30 June.
More than two-million social grant beneficiaries still need to switch from the SASSA/Postbank Gold Card to the Black Card. This is according to Postbank CEO Nikki Mbengashe.
Addressing Parliament’s social development committee on Tuesday, Mbengashe provided updates on the card swap process and measures to reduce long queues. She said about three-million people use the SASSA Gold Card but only 629,000 have switched to the Black Card.
The government extended the deadline for replacing the Gold Card from 28 February to 20 March, giving people more time to transition. Postbank said the new cards have enhanced security and meet updated banking standards.
The transition has been marked by difficulties, including long travel distances to service points for beneficiaries, long queues, and the system often going down.
Postbank has not met its goal of issuing 23,000 cards daily. “The main reason was that 90% of the time, people were just not showing up. Our tellers were sitting there doing nothing for the first three months. Yes, intermittently the connection to Home Affairs was 10% to blame, but truly 90% of the reason was because people just didn’t show up,” said Mbengashe.
Between November and January, 2,300 to 3,500 cards were issued daily. But since 7 February it increased to an average of over 10,400 per day. “You could see that as soon as we communicated the deadline, people knew there was pressure. The next day, we more than doubled what each site was doing per day,” Mbengashe said.
To meet the three-million target by March, Mbengashe said Postbank would need to issue 100,000 cards per day.
To accelerate the process, Postbank announced that it is partnering with the Spar Group, which will provide 200 stores as service sites nationally. “We’ve negotiated with them because, although we have sites, the issue is people to man them. Training takes five days, and recruitment and vetting are required. We needed a partner who could provide people familiar with financial services to do the job on our behalf,” Mbengashe said.
The Spar Group’s tellers, already trained in handling financial transactions, will receive “accelerated training,” reducing the timeframe from five days to two through on-the-job training with experienced tellers, Mbengashe said. Postbank also plans to increase the number of tellers per site.
Another intervention involves improved communication with beneficiaries, including issuing press releases.
To ease congestion in queues, Mbengashe said Postbank is expanding the cardless cash withdrawal system, which allows beneficiaries to withdraw grants at retailers using their ID and a registered cellphone number. “We are working around the clock to expand the cardless cash withdrawal option. It’s very easy to onboard a beneficiary, so this will alleviate the pressures in the queues,” Mbengashe said.
Postbank is also trying to improve security measures for beneficiary registration. “We’re finalising an app that our staff will use to onboard customers securely and ensure compliance,” she said.
To handle high call volumes, Postbank said it doubled its contact centre staff and is recruiting more people. SASSA has also offered its call centre during the switchover.
To help people locate service sites, Mbengashe said Postbank has made site information available on LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, and its website. Beneficiaries can also use the USSD code (*120*218*3#) to find their nearest site. (Though GroundUp has found that this doesn’t work consistently)
Mbengashe assured beneficiaries that Postbank’s sites will remain open beyond 20 March, and additional sites may be added. “If people get their grant in March, they have almost the whole of March to get the black card. We will continue increasing sites to prevent a backlog in April,” she said.
SASSA’s acting CEO Themba Matlou acknowledged communication issues with the transition.
“We have identified major hotspots and are introducing special outreach interventions to target these areas,” Matlou said. Community halls are being used as service points to provide beneficiaries with access to ablution facilities and shelter while waiting.
To manage long queues, SASSA has assigned two employees per site and prioritised elderly beneficiaries. The agency has also extended system hours to expedite processing.
Postbank said it aims to have black cards issued to all three-million gold card users by 30 June.
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Letters
Dear Editor
My employee went to SASSA point at 6am. She got to the front at 5pm to hear there were no more cards. How is this possible in this urgent state? The SMS number does not function. There is no telephone number.
Every town must have a minimum of 6 distribution points managed by at least 4 persons each. Waiting in queues is a health risk.
Dear Editor
The CEO of Postbank is lying that 90% does did not show up, it's a total lie, she must be held responsible for the lies/ deceit that she is spreading lies to protect her job.
She knows that she & the minister messed up, these people from Postbank work on 3 laptop computers in Shoprite, the lines are extremely long. The Postbank guy told me that they signed a contract from 8-5, in between 2 of them take lunch & go to the toilet for 1/2 hour at a time, they leave only 1 helper behind. He even told me their contract does not stipulate to work overtime to help the last 14 people in the line. They just have to come back the next day.
Old people are in wheelchairs and sick. Postbank said we can go to USave/Checkers/Pick & Pay/Boxer. That was also a big lie, they told us they do not change Postbank cards. We are tired of this lies & corruption !
Dear Editor
Please can you think of us the elderly in areas outside those you mentioned.
Spar Retail Crossing, which is big Spar ,can help a huge area in Wjgeheuwil Strubensvalley, Honeydew, etc. We do not all have transport or able to walk and stand for hours. We all will appreciate if you take these areas in Roodepoort consideration. Thank you.
Dear Editor
Why do you have to choose those "fancy" mediums for communicating with the elderly and unemployed members of the community?
There are many community radio stations, national TV and radio stations and many more much simpler ways to make sure that that everyone and everybody receives these announcements.
Dear Editor
Can somebody please answer this question? The southern suburbs between Woodstock and Simonstown do not have a single venue for this purpose, even though there are many Spar stores as well as Checkers, Shoprite and Pick n Pay stores – none of which are exchange venues!
Dear Editor
We spend about three hours waiting for post office to open. Only to be told by a very apologetic gentleman that they do not issue the black cards. Now what must we do? There are no places close to get the card. I tried phoning SASSA, post office, and *120*218*3# but it says "USSD CODE UNAVAILABLE".
Dear Editor
At least SASSA sees the light and will open more sites! I trust we will be informed ASAP as to the whereabout of the Spar sites and halls to be made available. Let's have some action please!
Dear Editor
The card swap is a disaster and very badly organised from the start. There was no proper communication with cardholders and caused much confusion as to how, where, when.
The elderly are now scrambling to find changing points. Standing in queues for hours, some from middle of the night. There is no shade, no place to sit. Imagine an elderly person of 80+ standing for hours in sun, just to find out that there are no more cards to hand out.
Telephonic information is mostly non-existent.
The disrespect towards the elderly is a disgrace.
Dear Editor
To swop your SASSA card is a total joke.
As an old age pensioner, we have been to the East Rand Mall in Boksburg three times. Today we were there at 8am as they only open at 9am. Eventually at 9.30am someone was ready to assist the long queues. She helped three people and the system was offline, for the third time.
She just sat playing on her phone and never said the system was offline. Only one person helping.
This is a total joke.
Dear Editor
The change over from the SASSA gold card to the black card is a nightmare. People must travel long distances to get to an approved point. Systems are always down. Old people must endure long hours waiting in long queues. It's so easy to get sick in this weather. They should have in place different days and points for the different grants.
Dear Editor
My elderly diabetic sister is expected to stand in a queue for untold hours to get her black card. Never mind the fact that all these sites are in unsafe areas. She is extremely stressed about this situation and quite honestly I am appalled that the South African government cares so little about the elderly in this country.
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