The Home Affairs National Information System Hanis and its replacement, the Automated Biometric Identity System Abis, are critical to the proper functioning of the economy as they allow institutions such as banks, insurance companies and telecommunications operators to verify clients identities. This verification is required by the industries' respective regulators, and a big hike to the fees levied by home affairs would drive up the cost of doing business.
Hanis is typically used when citizens apply for bank accounts, Sim cards and other services. The proposed changes would see the cost for a single query to the central national database rise from R4 to R10.
"From what we understand, they want to overhaul their systems, and the easiest way to recover costs seems to be through Hanis," ACT CEO Nomvuyiso Batyi said in a recent interview with TechCentral. ACT is an industry lobby group representing six of the largest network operators in South Africa.
"We have reached out to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre Sabric and the Banking Association of South Africa Basa to say this is not fair. Home affairs must perform their due diligence and not increase prices so drastically overnight."
According to Batyi, home affairs wanted to increase the fees without proper consultation with the public or the relevant industry stakeholders.