Following yet another technical issue with the Postbank payment system, thousands of recipients of social grants had a poor start to the year and were left without any funds.
Beneficiaries of the Sassa social grants who are gold card holders were unable to access their funds at a critical moment when many families needed money, It is reported that approximately 4500 grant recipients were impacted by the delays.
This Cohort of grant recipients relies on the PostBank to collect their grant payments and the delays, according to the Post Bank’s spokesperson, Bongani Diako, was due to a glitch caused by cyber security threats which began shortly after Post Bank was awarded the contract that had previously been awarded to the South African Post Office.
As a result, payments were affected throughout November and December, which meant that beneficiaries could not collect their payments. Diako adds that following this they opted to move payments to retailers to stabilise the situation.
In December we took a strategic decision to move the payments to retailers and the post office and to avoid the use of ATMs. We found the modus operandi being used was targeting ATMs.
The Post Bank has since confirmed that the issue has been resolved and that grant payments resumed on Tuesday 3 January 2023, starting with payments of the old age grant followed by other grants in the next two days at the time.
“On the 3rd of January, we paid the old age grants and on the 4th of January, we paid the disability grants.” He further explained
He adds that on Friday 5 January 2023 system’s performance wasn’t up to par between 9 am and 12 am when child grants were being paid. Beneficiaries who attempted to withdraw cash within this window period from merchants or ATMs experienced transaction timeouts. Despite not receiving the funds, it appeared as though they had.
The next cycle of grant payments will be made on 3 February 2023, starting with the Older persons grant.
Also read: Required documents for Older Person’s Grant applications
