South Africans may one day use the MyMzansi digital ID from home affairs to set up a payment credential, according to DIDx founder Lohan Spies. He told TechCentral this could save people from going through a separate sign-up process.
The payment credential would fall under PEMKey. This is one of the projects in the Reserve Bank’s Payments Ecosystem Modernisation programme. The central bank said PEMKey will allow secure, reusable and trusted digital credentials across the payments system.
“Effectively, what you do is you seed your PEMKey,” Spies said. He said that once a user is verified, they can skip the onboarding steps “because home affairs already did the hard work to prove that it’s really me”.
Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber showed the department’s digital ID on his phone in the MyMzansi app on 1 October. Treasury has set aside R150 million for the app. The South African Revenue Service (Sars) also plans to give every taxpayer a digital identity.
The Reserve Bank has not said whether it will accept MyMzansi credentials. Its PEMKey FAQ page said the system builds on trust already set up by foundational credentials and trusted authorities.
A Reserve Bank presentation from its September industry dialogue describes an approved issuer of a personal payment credential. That issuer would confirm identity through approved checks, such as home affairs source data. The presentation does not mention MyMzansi.
Spies and DIDx chief operating officer Gideon Lombard spoke as digital identity specialists. They said they could not speak for the Reserve Bank. Lombard said DIDx works on several government digital identity projects.
DIDx also does work for Interfront, the IT company fully owned by Sars, under a public tender. TechCentral reported that DIDx builds the kind of technology PEMKey will use, so it has a business interest in the programme. The Reserve Bank has not published a list of companies in its PEMKey sandbox.
Spies said home affairs holds citizens’ identity records and fingerprints, which makes it “the fundamental golden source of truth”. He said MyMzansi’s first job is to link people and government services.
Lombard said that 18 months ago there was “a bit of a question mark” over which department would lead on identity. He said home affairs, Sars and others now build on each other’s work. “It’s not a zero-sum game between them anymore,” he said.
Asked if PEMKey would have one provider or many, Spies said the programme is not meant to be controlled by any single body. He said technology can come from anywhere if it meets PEMKey standards.
The Reserve Bank’s presentation said the sandbox is open to all possible participants. It added that joining needs Reserve Bank approval and does not promise future accreditation.
Spies said PEMKey is “not intended to be a big brother surveillance capability”. He said the aim is to prove both sides passed customer checks without showing who paid whom. Banks could still identify their clients if something went wrong.
The Reserve Bank’s FAQ said credentials are not kept in one central store. It said the system is not designed to track spending or build profiles of how people use money.
Home affairs and Sars signed a digital agreement in April 2025. The digital ID’s core systems will be built in Sars’s hosting environment. A working digital ID is targeted for 2027/2028.
Spies said the timeline is technically realistic. “It will be there. It will be functional,” he said. He questioned whether it would be ready for a full national roll-out, and Lombard expects it to be rolled out in phases.
“The difficult thing here is governance and trust,” Spies said. He said use of the ID will depend on services such as claiming a Sassa grant or paying taxes. “To drive the scale and adoption, you need the e-services,” he said.
Source: this article is based on reporting by TechCentral. Image: TechCentral. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Technology desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Werner Jacobs covers technology for Tzaneen Voice. Werner reports on mobile networks, data prices, internet access, smartphones, apps, AI, cybersecurity and South African tech companies. Each story explains what a new product, price change or policy means for ordinary users in South Africa.