Over 400k SASSA beneficiaries migrate to Postbank black cards

JOHANNESBURG - More than 450,000 South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) beneficiaries migrated to Postbank black cards in February alone, marking a significant surge ahead of the Thursday deadline.

This milestone was highlighted at a media briefing that Postbank and SASAA hosted on Monday.

The entity says it hopes to have all 2.6 million beneficiaries registered by the deadline.

Postbank says it began the migration process last September when registration numbers were low.

Applications picked up once the initial deadline of 28 February was announced.

The entity is using retail stores and post offices to handle registrations.

After facing criticism over long queues and staff shortages, Postbank increased its service centres to 329.

Postbank CEO Nikki Mbengashe says this helped over 450,000 beneficiaries migrate in just one month.

“In February, we achieved 46% of this one million in one month, and we share this number not for anything else but to emphasise that we can go through this process — we can do what we’re doing — and the fact that we did over 450,000 in one month is testament.”

She added that over 200 registrations are taking place daily.