The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies is encouraged by social grant beneficiaries who were holders of the SASSA gold cards for coming out in numbers to swop to the new Postbank black cards following the call by the Ministers of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi and Social Development, Nokuzola Tolashe on Friday, 14 February 2025.
The Department encourages SASSA beneficiaries who have not yet swopped their cards to do so urgently ahead of the extended deadline of 20 March 2025.
The replacement of SASSA gold cards with black cards for social grant beneficiaries is progressing satisfactorily, and the collaboration demonstrated by Postbank and SASSA in jointly implementing this initiative of national importance is encouraging.
We are grateful to the social grant beneficiaries that continue to heed the call to replace their cards. There has been an encouraging response from beneficiaries following the extension of the deadline.
The numbers of beneficiaries issued with black cards continue to climb daily. To date, a total of 716 900 beneficiaries have transitioned to black cards.
Since the announcement of the extension of the deadline on 14 February 2025, 126 663 cards have been issued which is a 18% increase. Just as of yesterday (20 November 2024), Postbank achieved a record high daily conversion number of 29 006 beneficiaries. This is a noteworthy development given that the card replacement conversions were historically low due to beneficiaries’ response levels.
The department is aware of the concerns relating to the queues in some of the sites, which are a direct outcome of the increased interest. Measures continue to be put in place to mitigate this so that beneficiaries can replace their cards on time, and under humanely acceptable circumstances because we are part of a caring government.
To mitigate the queues and ensure that every beneficiary receives the new card near where they live and undergo a much smoother card switching process that improves their customer experience, Postbank is increasing card distribution sites nationally. To date, sites have been increased on average 65% percentage month to month.
Since the announcement of the deadline on 14 February, Postbank has already increased card replacement sites nationally by 20%, with a special focus in areas where large queues were experienced. Postbank will also be activating additional 237 Spar retail outlets in the next 10 days to increase the number of sites distributing cards.
As part of the initiatives to grow capacity within the already existing sites, Postbank has also increased the number of tellers in the card replacement sites nationally from 2 tellers to up to 3 -5 tellers, depending on the business of the site.
The management of queues is one other important measure that has been introduced to ensure that beneficiaries are engaged and provided critical information. In addition, collaborating with SASSA, officials from SASSA offices have been deployed to assist with queue management in all sites across the country.
The business days in the card replacement sites have been extended from Monday to Friday, to now include Saturdays. Postbank has already increased the operating hours in all the card distribution sites to ensure that each site closes according to the operating hours of the retail stores, and some sites close at 8pm.
The Western Cape is one of the highly prioritized provinces. In the coming week, Postbank will be increasing the number of available sites by 50%, and this number will increase further to ensure presence in all municipal districts when the Spar sties in the province are rolled out within the coming 10 days.
We will continue to monitor this to ensure that we get to as many as possible beneficiaries before the deadline. Beneficiaries are encouraged to go to a Postbank card replacement site near them to get the new black cards.
We assure the public and all social grant beneficiaries that, Postbank together will SASSA, have ensured that every social grant beneficiary is paid their grant. No social grant beneficiary will be left out of the payments, including those that may miss the deadline.
An enhanced and shortened USSD number which beneficiaries can utilize to look up sites from the comfort of their homes has been introduced. Beneficiaries can follow this from their cellphones to look up card replacement sites:
▪ Dial *120*335#
▪ Reply with (1) to continue
▪ Reply with the province number (of the province in which they want to look up card replacement sites)
▪ Reply with the number of the municipality. Then all the card replacement sites under that municipality will appear.
For more information visit www.postbank.co.za, call 0800 53 54 55 and Postbank official social media pages.
Social media Postbank:
X: Postbank_SOC_Ltd
Faceboook: Postbank SA
LinkedIn: Postbank (S)C) Ltd
FOR MEDIA ENQUIRIES:
Media Liaison Officer: Ms Tlangelani Manganyi
Cell : 060 886 4670
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URL : www.dcdt.gov.za
Facebook : Department of Communications & Digital Technologies.
X : @CommsZA
Issued by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Technologies