Following an initial pilot "that yielded promising results and further enhancements, home affairs will on 1 July 2025 begin the roll-out of an upgraded National Population Register NPR verification service to all companies and government users to verify identities with first-class speed and reliability", home affairs said in a statement on Monday. However, corporate South Africa is going to have to cough up handsomely to utilise the platform from next month and the countrys telecoms operators have already signalled alarm at the move.
"?For more than a decade, banks and financial service providers have only paid 15c for real-time verifications against the NPR. This is below market-related rates charged by the private sector for comparable services and far below the cost to the state of providing the online verification service, which deprived home affairs of the resources required to maintain the NPR," it said.
"Extreme under-pricing has led to profiteering and abuses by some users that overwhelm the NPR and cause failure rates of more than 50, contributing to 'system offline' failures at home affairs offices and threatening national security."
The planned price increases have already been sharply criticised by the Association of Comms Technology ACT, the industry body representing South Africa's six largest telecoms operators. According to ACT CEO Nomvuyiso Batyi, home affairs sought to increase the fees without adequate consultation with the industry.
"?After initiating substantial upgrades to the service, home affairs has gazetted a new price structure that sets a cost-reflective price for real-time verifications during peak hours at R10, while introducing an off-peak, low-cost alternative for batch transactions costing just R1," the minister said in its statement.