The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has gone through a number of changes in recent years. Recently, the government agency has advised some of its clients to adopt a new payment method to access their funds.
It’s been years since millions of social grant beneficiaries had been accessing their monies through the South African Post Office (Sapo).
In 2022, the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) discontinued its services with Sapo and the Postbank has since taken over.
According to Postbank spokesperson, Dr. Bongani Diako, majority of the more than seven million social grants beneficiaries using the Postbank issued Sassa gold cards, withdraw their grant funds via bank ATMs and retailers.
In a recently released statement, the government agency has announced:
It is recommended that Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant clients open their own bank accounts with an institution of their choice as it will assist them to take ownership of their funds and collection.
Since the government began to administer the SRD grant to qualifying individuals, it has been calling on beneficiaries to make their grant payment be made to their bank accounts for convenience and so that they can access it from anywhere.
These are the steps that SRD beneficiaries ought to follow to add or change banking details:
- Visit the SRD website at srd.sassa.gov.za.
- Scroll down to the “How do I change my banking details” section
- Insert your ID number
- An SMS containing the Sassa banking details link will be sent to the mobile phone number used when registering for the SRD application.
- Open the banking details link in the SMS
- Capture Bank name.
- Capture Account type.
- Capture Account number.
- Click Submit.
Sassa has also confirmed that they don’t pay a beneficiary’s grant into another person’s bank account.
Hence, SRD grant recipients need to make sure that they submit their own personal bank account details when they choose to receive their grant funds through their bank account.
SRD clients ought to meet the government agency halfway by being a little bit more diligent when they put their bank account details into the application system, and also refrain from constantly changing their SRD grant banking details.
