FNB customers have long used the bank’s Home Affairs services to get their Smart IDs and passports. That privilege is only reserved for the folks who can drag themselves up to one of the eight branches that offer the service. In 2025, the bank (and plenty of others) committed to expanding that figure as part of a new partnership with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA). It’s all going according to plan, it said.
Banking on FNB
“Partnerships like this will help us modernise Home Affairs, strengthen the integrity of our national identity system, and make it easier for every South African to obtain the documents they need to participate fully in society and the economy,” said Leon Schreiber, minister of Home Affairs.
It won’t be long before we see this partnership bear fruit after a successful round of testing. The bank hasn’t explicitly said when customers can expect to see more of these DHA-affiliated branches go live, other than mentioning they will go live “soon”. By the end of 2026, it hopes to scale the service to more than 240 branches.
While FNB’s DHA partnership agreed to offer both Smart ID and passport services, FNB’s announcement only focuses on the former. That won’t be the case forever, however. The service will be upgraded to include passport applications, as well as the ability to apply via the FNB app. When, though, is still a mystery.
When the service becomes available to the public, customers won’t have to worry about extra fees. “During the initial phase, clients will pay only the standard DHA application fee of R140.” What that fee will look like beyond the “initial phase”, and how long it will last, remains to be seen.
