Postbank services fully restored after system failure halts card migration
SASSA beneficiaries had until four o'clock on Thursday to move to the new Postbank black cards and ditch their SASSA gold cards.
JOHANNESBURG - Postbank has confirmed that all its services are fully restored following a long-drawn system failure on Thursday, as SASSA beneficiaries faced D-day for migrating to new bank cards.
The system was offline for several hours earlier on Thursday, causing some grant recipients to abandon their mission after standing in long queues since the crack of dawn.
SASSA beneficiaries had until four o'clock on Thursday to move to the new Postbank black cards and ditch their SASSA gold cards.
ALSO READ:
• Frustrated CT grant recipient bemoans money spent on having to do swap to Postbank black card
• Social grant recipients frustrated with poor service at Postbank card-swapping sites
• Western Cape SASSA beneficiaries queuing for card migration complain of poor service
The move follows a security fault on current SASSA cards.
Angry and tired SASSA beneficiaries were left in the lurch just hours before the deadline for the nationwide switch.
Some recipients, like Bridgette Nzoyiya, expressed frustration with the process.
"I have been here since 5am. I don't think we'll receive assistance and some of us have travelled from far to be here. We don’t even have taxi fare to go back home."
In a message to EWN, Postbank spokesperson, Bongani Diako, said the entity's network hosting partner experienced a network outage, leading to an abrupt halt in the issuing of new cards.
Diako said now that systems were up again, officials were continuing to distribute cards.