The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) had scheduled for social grants to be administered in the first week of December 2022, with those receiving the older person’s grants being the first to receive their monthly monies.
For the month of December, withdrawals have been suspended for clients that use the Postbank issued gold Sassa cards at bank ATMs.
Postbank does acknowledge how the change in payments channels will have an impact on the grant beneficiaries, and the banking company has since apologise for the inconvenience. In a statement, Postbank said:
Clients using the gold SASSA cards are requested to withdraw their benefits from retail merchants.
Sassa beneficiaries using the Postbank issued Sassa gold cards are requested to withdraw their social grants monies at any retail outlet nationwide that provides the cashback functionality which includes Shoprite, Checkers, Usave, Pick ‘n Pay and Boxer.
Sassa grants recipients can also use the Sassa gold cards to make purchases at any place that accepts bank card transactions; the Sassa gold cards function fully within the national payments system, similarly to any other bank card.
The decision to halt payments is due to the resurgence of systematic ATM card fraud related crimes on Postbank payments that have been noted at the inception of the December payments.
Postbank has assured its clients that a team of professionals has been assigned to deal with this challenge and great progress has been made to close down all avenues used by these criminals so far.
A few months ago, the banking company had experienced a number of technical glitches that disrupted the withdrawal of grants.
