Cape Town - The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) has called on beneficiaries using the gold card to withdraw their grants from local retailers and ATMs.
This comes as the South African Post Office outlets experience glitches in their systems.
Sassa said withdrawals of grants can be made at any retail outlet nationwide that provides the cash-back option, and this includes retailers such as Shoprite, Checkers, Usave, Pick n Pay and Boxer.
Grant beneficiaries are reminded they can also use their Sassa gold cards to make purchases at any place that accepts bank card transactions as the gold cards functions fully within the National Payment System, similar to that of any other bank card.
It said the system glitch within the Post Office outlets also affects all Postbank customers wishing to make over-the-counter transactions that include deposits and withdrawals.
Interim CEO for Postbank, Lucas Ndala has apologised for the inconvenience caused.
“We apologise to our Sassa social grants beneficiaries and Postbank customers for the inconvenience caused as we take every service interruption seriously.
“Our IT teams have been tasked to resolve the technical challenges affecting the over-the-counter branch transactions as a matter of urgency.
“All customers are advised to utilise retailers and ATMs as alternatives while we are working on retaining full services availability within Post Office branches,” Ndala said.
He said customers and stakeholders are reassured that their overall experience of Postbank and the services offered remain its priority.
Postbank will send out a notification once the matter is resolved.
Acting CEO of Sassa, Abraham Mahlangu said it uses a full-functional bank card that is compatible with all access points within the National Payment System.
“This thereby limiting the impact on clients when the system of one bank, merchant or pay point is down. We will continue to diversify these channels as much as possible to reduce the reliance on any one particular access point as we continue to pay the right social grant to the right person at the right time and place,” Mahlangu said.
robin.francke@inl.co.za
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