Signing up for a Smart ID card in South Africa has been made even easier thanks to banks supporting the E-Home Affairs system.
This system allows supported bank branches to accept Smart ID card applications and distribute these documents without the customer ever needing to visit Home Affairs.
Choosing this process over visiting a standard Home Affairs branch is far easier and less time-consuming, with much of the application work being completed online beforehand.
The list of supported bank branches has been expanded greatly since the launch of the E-Home Affairs service four years ago, and 19 new locations were set to be added this year.
It is, however, unclear how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected this planned rollout, or how many of the branches scheduled to go live with the E-Home Affairs system this year have done so.
The list of supported bank branches provided on the Department of Home Affairs website is considerably smaller than the combined lists of active and upcoming branches provided to us by the banks earlier this year.
Therefore, we contacted the banks and asked them to provide their full list of bank branches that support E-Home Affairs functionality.
Where banks did not respond, we included their previously planned branches with a note that these are unconfirmed.
List of E-Home Affairs bank branches
| Branch | City | Address |
|---|---|---|
| Absa | ||
| Absa Centurion Lifestyle | Centurion | Centurion Lifestyle Centre, c/o Old Johannesburg Road & Lenchen Ave |
| Absa Sandton City | Johannesburg | Cnr Rivonia Road and 5th Street, Sandton |
| Absa Towers | Johannesburg | 160 Main Street, Johannesburg |
| Absa Greenacres | Port Elizabeth | Greenacres Shopping Centre, 1 Ring Rd |
| Absa Key West | Krugersdorp | Shop 80, Key West Shopping Centre, c/o Paardekraal Drive and Viljoen Street |
| Absa Claremont* | Cape Town | Absa on Grove, 11 Grove Ave |
| Absa Fourways* | Johannesburg | Fourways View, c/o Witkoppen and Cedar Roads |
| Absa Menlyn Maine* | Pretoria | 181 Bancor Avenue |
| Absa Pinetown* | Durban | 1 Church Ln, New Germany, Pinetown |
| Absa Randburg* | Johannesburg | Shop L65, Ferndale on Republic, Republic Road |
| Absa Rosebank* | Johannesburg | 21 Cradock Ave |
| Absa Stellenbosch* | Stellenbosch | Oude Bloemhof Building, c/o Plein and Ryneveld Streets |
| Absa Waterfall Mall* | Rustenburg | 1 Augrabies Ave, Cashan |
| Absa Woodlands* | Pretoria | Shop 6 Woodlands Boulevard, c/o Garsfontein Road and De Villebois Drive |
| Nedbank | ||
| Nedbank Arcadia | Pretoria | C/o Steve Biko and Madiba Street |
| Nedbank Rivonia | Johannesburg | 135 Rivonia Road |
| Nedbank Constantia Kloof | Johannesburg | 18 Constantia Boulevard |
| Nedbank St. George’s Mall | Cape Town | C/o Waterkant Road and St. George’s Mall |
| Nedbank The Crossing | Nelspruit | Cnr, Madiba Drive, Samora Machel Dr, Nelspruit, 1200 |
| Standard Bank | ||
| Standard Bank Centurion | Centurion | C/o Hendrick Vervoerd and South Street |
| Standard Bank Killarney, Rosebank | Johannesburg | Killarney Mall, 60 Riviera Road |
| Standard Bank Simmonds | Johannesburg | 5 Simmonds Street |
| Standard Bank Canal Walk | Cape Town | Shop 599LL, Canal Walk Shopping Centre, Century City Dr |
| Standard Bank Jubilee Mall | Hammanskraal | C/o Jubilee Road D154 and Harry Gwala Road D2757 |
| Standard Bank Kathu | Kathu | Hendrik Van Eck Street, Shop 62, Village Walk Shopping Centre |
| Standard Bank Kingsmead (Closed for renovation) | Durban | 1 Standard Bank Centre, Kingsmead Way, Stamford Hill |
| Standard Bank Port Elizabeth | Port Elizabeth | 1 Pickering Street, Newton Park |
| Standard Bank Promenade Mall | Cape Town | C/o AZ Berman Road And Morgenster Road, Shop 73-75 Liberty Promenade |
| FNB | ||
| FNB Towers | Johannesburg | 27 Diagonal St, Newtown |
| FNB Centurion Lifestyle | Centurion | Centurion Lifestyle Centre, c/o Old Johannesburg Road & Lenchen Ave |
| FNB Menlyn – Pretoria | Pretoria | Shop 4, upper level, Cnr Simon Vermooten & Lynnwood Road, Equestria |
| FNB Merchant Place | Johannesburg | 4 Merchant Place, Cnr Rivonia Road and Fredman Drive |
| FNB Portside | Cape Town | Portside, 5 Buitengracht St |
| FNB Burgersfort | Burgersfort | Dirk Winterbach Street, Burgersfort, Limpopo |
Below are the bank branches where you can apply for your smart ID or passport, including those based on previous feedback.
Smart ID card features.
Following its launch, South Africa’s smart ID card was lauded as one of the most advanced IDs in the world.
LAWtrust solutions director Maeson Maherry said that among the benefits of these cards is that identity checks can be automated so that fewer things can go wrong.
“Many people don’t think Home Affairs [implemented a Smart ID card] because you can’t see the chip, but it’s actually a contactless chip,” said Maherry.
As the card doesn’t have to be inserted and removed from readers to be used, this is great for its durability.
South Africa’s new Smart ID card also has a number of advanced security features.
These include the public key infrastructure (PKI) which the card is built on, as well as the on-chip storage of biometric data, which means your fingerprints can be matched to the card offline.
This can be used to unlock a digital certificate – also secured on the card – which may be used to digitally sign transactions.
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