Social grant beneficiaries who use Postbank or SA Social Security Agency (SASSA) gold cards will not be able to withdraw their funds from ATMs for December, the agency said on Tuesday. They have been requested to withdraw their benefits from retail merchants for the month of December.

THIS IS WHY
In a statement, Postbank announced they have been facing challenges in the past few months. "In recent months, Postbank has been experiencing a number of technical glitches that disrupted the smooth withdrawal of Social Assistance benefits. Following extensive investigations, we have uncovered a series of network attacks by criminal elements determined to commit systematic ATM card fraud-related crimes on Postbank payments using sophisticated modus operandi, which require further investigation," the statement reads. Postbank and gold cardholders will be able to access their funds from retail merchants. "Asa mitigating exercise, and in consultation with our partners following of these criminal activities at the inception of the December payments, it has become necessary that Postbank suspends Sassa grants withdrawal at ATMs for those clients using the Postbank-issued SASSA gold cards,” the statement goes to say.

GOLD CARDHOLDERS
SASSA says that retailers including Shoprite, Checkers, Usave, Pick 'n Pay, and Boxer will be available for gold cardholders to make purchases and withdrawals as It operates the same as any other bank card. SASSA has also assured beneficiaries that the gold cards remained valid and had not expired. "We assure our customers that a dedicated team of professionals, assisted by experienced external experts as well as law enforcement agencies, has been assigned to deal with this challenge, and great progress has been made to close down all avenues used by these criminals,” SASSA said that the Postbank will notify beneficiaries when ATM transactions are available again.