The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has announced that the validity of gold cards has been extended indefinitely. This means that beneficiaries will be able to continue using their Sassa gold cards for the foreseeable future.
Beneficiaries were assured that they will be able to use their gold cards until further notice from Sassa.
Worry not because your Gold Card will continue to transact until further notice.
The issuance of new Postbank black cards is also placed on hold and sites using Postbank black cards will no longer be operational.
Please note that the issuing of black cards is temporarily placed on hold and card replacement sites are no longer operational.
Grant beneficiaries using Sassa gold cards have faced uncertainty regarding the validity of their cards for months. Last year, Sassa announced that the cards would be replaced by new Postbank black cards.
Initially, the agency said the validity of gold cards would be maintained until all beneficiaries were upgraded to the Postbank black. However, Sassa’s tone changed earlier this year when they announced that gold cards would expire at the end of February 2025.
Following calls from stakeholders, an extension to the validity was granted and cards were set to expire at the end of March 2025. This deadline came and went, and the validity of cards was then extended to the end of May 2025.
While these deadlines elapsed, Postbank was in a race against time to issue new black cards to approximately 3 million grant beneficiaries. The agency faced criticism for inefficiency of the rollout and the anxiety it caused for beneficiaries.
In April 2025, the issuance of new Postbank black cards came to an abrupt halt as the rollout was suspended. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) instructed Postbank to ensure the continued operation of Sassa gold cards and to honour all transactions made using them.
Sassa expressed confidence that all beneficiaries will be paid their grants. The agency added that a new deadline for the expiry of gold cards would be announced.
The indefinite extension of Sassa gold card validity will bring relief to many grant beneficiaries who were unable to upgrade to a Postbank black card.
