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Postbank ready to take on the role of state bank, says Minister Ntshavheni

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Minister of Communications Khumbudzo Ntshavheni says the Postbank will be ready to assume its role as a state bank. Ntshavheni says work is already underway to upgrade services that are offered by the Postbank.

She claims that the state bank amendment bill is still being debated in parliament.

According to the government, the establishment of a state bank will aid in the emergence of industrialists, which is critical to economic transformation.

The Postbank is getting ready to hit the ground running. Activation programmes are underway to attract more clients. And the infrastructure upgrade will begin soon in order to develop a proper banking infrastructure.

Minister Ntshavheni says the bank will operate within the same facilities as the post office to afford financial services to all South Africans.

“We have done an assessment of a lot of branches of post offices we have been going around we are targeting to open 100 branches so they will then do the infrastructure revamp that is required. Remember currently they operate at the post office and there’s no proper banking infrastructure. a bank operates at a different level so they must start to put the necessary infrastructure so that when the licence comes in the bank will be readily available,” says Ntshavheni.

Many SASSA grant receivers have been struggling to access their money. Cards are declining, forcing many to form long queues just to access their much-needed grants.

One SASSA grant receiver explains, “As for the poor people, people don’t have money to provide for themselves. We will appreciate our President if you can give us that postbank loan. The bank must work together with us. We will appreciate and a big big hole mister President. Please help us. We are here today at the postbank because we didn’t find the money for the children.”

The department has allayed fears of cybercrime. The SASSA grant system was hacked which leads to a loss of millions of rands.

The Reserve bank has given the Postbank a variation notice extension until December 2023 to fix its security.

“We are working to make sure that stops, we are working with SASSA and social development to make sure that we can guarantee the bank of SASSA and that means that bank cards will be changed because they’ve been all sorts of issues with SASSA cards and the manipulation of the system,” explains Nsthavheni.

Video: SA Post Office technical faults affect SASSA grants collections: Paseka Letsatsi

The Minister says President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to make the announcement of the target date for corporatisation of the bank during the state of the nation.

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