The Department of Home Affairs’ new identity verification service that enables government users and private sector clients to verify information against the National Population Register (NPR) is making progress since its rollout earlier this month.
“The department is proud to report that it has already successfully onboarded government’s entire justice cluster to the upgraded service, which includes key public sector entities like the South African Social Security Administration (SASSA), the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.
“This cluster alone is now successfully processing over 180 000 transactions per day through the new service, which consistently delivers results in less than one second, with an error rate well below one percent.”
In a statement the Ministry of Home Affairs said that owing to years of under-pricing the service had broken down to the point where over half of all verification attempts failed – severely undermining social and financial inclusion, as the provision of services ranging from social grant payments to banking makes use of this service.
READ | Home Affairs rolls out upgraded National Population Register from 1 July
In a statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Home Affairs added that the system which was launched on 1 July 2025 is working well for private sector users that have been onboarded, and has delivered a major step towards making both government services more efficient and financial services more accessible and reliable.
“One private sector user has already processed over one million records through the new off-peak batch option that would previously have gone into the real-time queue, directly contributing to a more stable NPR for all users,” it said.
Additional help
However, despite extensive public consultations that included both written correspondence and in-person meetings over a period of a number of months, including the recent 30 days set aside explicitly for public consultation which ended at the end of May, some users had still not adequately prepared their systems to make use of the upgraded service.
“While a number of both public and private sector users have already proactively transitioned to the upgraded service, it is unfortunate that some users have not been as proactive. In particular, users that have been slower to make this critical transition have contacted the department to request assistance to avoid incurring higher costs, while they work to optimise their usage by moving as many verifications out of the R10 real-time queue to the off-peak queue, which attracts the lower charge of just R1.
“In a gesture that reflects the department’s ongoing commitment to working in good faith with responsible users to repair the NPR, Home Affairs has decided to implement an additional measure to ensure cost effective fees for clients that have been slow to optimise their usage and are therefore not able to immediately take advantage of the new low-cost off-peak alternative,” it explained.
While users must pay in terms of the new fee structure introduced by the amended regulations that went into effect on 1 July, the department has also provided an option for users to voluntarily elect to only have their usage costs incurred for the three-month period between 1 July and 30 September calculated at the end of October, based on their usage pattern during the month of October.
“In effect, this means that the amount owed to Home Affairs will only be confirmed after users have had the three-month period to optimise their usage by moving as many verifications as possible out of the R10 real-time queue, into the R1 off-peak queue.
“Once the actual amount owed is calculated at the end of October, any amounts paid in excess of what would have been paid had usage been optimised from 1 July 2025, will be credited back to users,” said the department.
Additionally, the department said that in terms of the lower-cost batch option, there is significant opportunity for cost savings. The intricacies of this can be dealt with by the department when interacting with users on [email protected].
“This measure not only reflects Home Affairs’ commitment to responsibly managing the transition process to ensure adequate investment in maintaining the new, world-class NPR verification service for many years to come, but also confirms that the new system and fee structure is working as intended,” said Home Affairs Minister, Dr Leon Schreiber.
Clients that have been slow to optimise their usage and want to voluntarily make use of this measure to ensure that their transition to the upgraded service is as cost-effective as possible are encouraged to contact [email protected]. – SAnews.gov.za
