Good news for people who must get a new passport in South Africa

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has announced plans to enable 1,000 bank branches in South Africa to offer ID and passport services in the next five years, with 100 bank branches targeted for 2025.

The DHA’s new Strategic Plan, which will guide the department’s strategy from 2025 to 2030, was presented to the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Tuesday, 22 April 2025.

This comes after Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber told Daily Investor earlier this year that the department’s biggest priority in 2025 is to deliver “Home Affairs @ home”.

“To achieve this, we will be rolling out additional channels for clients to obtain Home Affairs ID and passport services without requiring them to visit our offices,” he said. 

“This includes deepening cooperation with banks to provide Home Affairs services in many more branches, introducing digital channels similar to online banking, and enabling clients to have IDs and passports delivered to their doorsteps.” 

“We also continue to roll out mobile units that visit communities in rural and needy areas. All of these reforms are part of incrementally bringing Home Affairs closer to home for all South Africans.”

These plans have now been made more concrete, as the DHA’s new Strategic Plan outlines the department’s objectives over the next five years, which include extending its network of DHA-enabled bank branches.

Currently, 30 bank branches in South Africa offer passport and Smart ID renewals through the eHomeAffairs system.

The Department of Home Affairs introduced this system in 2016. Since then, FNB, Standard Bank, Absa, Investec, Nedbank, and Discovery Bank have operated successful pilot sites. 

This facility enables people to apply for a Smart ID card or a new passport online and pay for it before going to a bank branch to have their biometric verification done.

In its new Strategic Plan, the DHA committed to extending live capture functionality to 1,000 bank branches in the country in the medium term.

Specifically, the DHA will target 100 bank branches with this functionality in the 2025/26 financial year, 400 additional branches in 2026/27, and 500 more in 2027/28.

The ‘new’ Home Affairs

This new strategy forms part of the DHA’s plan to modernise its services and turn Home Affairs into a digital-first department.

This charge is led by Schreiber, who unveiled his vision for the department in September 2024, which included a new five-year strategic vision.

This new approach, which Schreiber dubbed “Home Affairs @ home”, envisions an ambitious future where no one has to visit a Home Affairs office in person again to access routine services. 

“Instead, our vision directs that, over the next five years, all of the department’s services must become fully automated, digitised, and offered online at the fingertips of our clients, from the comfort of their own homes,” the DHA explained. 

“Rather than going to Home Affairs, our vision under the Government of National Unity is to bring Home Affairs to you.”

The minister told Daily Investor earlier this year that the DHA’s vision to deliver Home Affairs @ home during the current administration has the potential to redefine the way in which government works in South Africa.

He explained this will be done “through a process of reform to revolutionise government similar to the way in which banking was revolutionised by the advent of online banking”.

The presentation of the DHA’s new Strategic Plan explained that the department’s frontline offices around the country are “totally inadequate to the reach that is needed to address the imbalances of the past”.

“The offices we do have are in many cases badly located, in a poor state of repair, inadequately staffed and equipped,” the presentation stated.

This is why the department’s plans to extend its DHA-enabled bank branch network are crucial to achieving its targets.

The minister told Daily Investor that the Home Affairs @ home initiative will dramatically expand and deepen Home Affairs’ cooperation with banks, which has been piloted successfully in 30 branches.

However, he said this project has been in a pilot phase for too long, “and I am determined to expand Home Affairs services to hundreds of bank branches across the length and breadth of South Africa”.