Speaker 1: Well more of elements today, it seems in the dispute
Speaker 1: between Time Bank and the Home Affairs Department over the fees,
Speaker 1: Home Affairs is now going to charge banks and other
Speaker 1: institutions to access the national population registered Time banks is
Speaker 1: the new fees will make it much harder to bank
Speaker 1: poorer people. Capy Deck is backing Home Affairs. The Home
Speaker 1: Affairs mister Leon Tribe told us last week how angry
Speaker 1: he was a Time Bank. He says they're making a
Speaker 1: fortune while complaining about a relatively small increase. Es Jacobs
Speaker 1: is the chief commercial officer at Time Bank. Chesslain, good
Speaker 1: evening to you. You've now given the example of banking
Speaker 1: someone who receives an SRD grant, so three hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy round a month. How much would it cost you
Speaker 1: to set up an account for that person? How important
Speaker 1: would the new verification fee be in that cost?
Speaker 2: Yeah, good evening, Stephen, and good evening to listeners, and
Speaker 2: thanks for having us again. So yeahs as the article
Speaker 2: we've put out today, State said, based on call it
Speaker 2: the old infrastructure, it must probably cost us in the
Speaker 2: legion got fifty ran to acquire this customer. And obviously
Speaker 2: there some ongoing costs in servicing this customer. With the
Speaker 2: proposed change, which actually went live today, it increases that
Speaker 2: cost by an additional twenty and am so the fifty
Speaker 2: rane becomes seventy nan and then in essence makes it
Speaker 2: largely unsustainable to successfully bank at a minimum seven and
Speaker 2: a half million sold count disciplines. But I think it's
Speaker 2: important to note that almost fifteen millions of applicants actually
Speaker 2: apply for this assistance every single month.
Speaker 1: Why is the cost currently fifty rand to open the
Speaker 1: bank account for you? Isn't it mostly just it stuff?
Speaker 2: No? So an important part that I think it's important
Speaker 2: to remember is that in essence, when when you allow
Speaker 2: customer to fully interact in the national payment system, what
Speaker 2: in essence you want them to have is a linked
Speaker 2: debit card or a link check card and to issue
Speaker 2: that piece of plastic which is probably the largest portion
Speaker 2: of that firste hine today but again with the ink
Speaker 2: is proposed by the department fundamentally change to the un
Speaker 2: economics observing these customers.
Speaker 1: What homer Phase is doing is they're going to have
Speaker 1: two separate rates. There's peak and there's off peak. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: you be able to and the off peak rate is
Speaker 1: much cheaper. It's around Essentially, wouldn't you be able to
Speaker 1: use that that time to deal with clients who receive
Speaker 1: or d grants the clients you say you're talking about.
Speaker 2: It's also important to consider the element of convenience specifically
Speaker 2: for these customers, Stephen. I think with coy c so
Speaker 2: feaka traditional bank legislation, it obligates banks to first fully
Speaker 2: verify customers identity before they can actively participate. And if
Speaker 2: you can't do that in medial time, in essence, what
Speaker 2: you ask these customers to make multiple because it's a
Speaker 2: two banking infrastuts to get this done, and that in
Speaker 2: itself becomes a liability for the customer. And then the
Speaker 2: question has to be whether it's work a while at
Speaker 2: the engaging in call it in the banking system in
Speaker 2: the country or not. And I think we have to
Speaker 2: put a price on that level of convenience specifically for
Speaker 2: for for for these customers.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, I hear you, but I mean I think,
Speaker 1: I think Tribe, I mean Triber was furious last week.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you heard his conversation with us.
Speaker 1: I know he's spoken elsewhere. He spoken on social media
Speaker 1: about this as well. But as I understand the state
Speaker 1: of play, he says you were consulted, and your bank
Speaker 1: is saying you can find no record of that consultation,
Speaker 1: no email or anything like that. I find it quite
Speaker 1: difficult to understand how your institution could somehow have been
Speaker 1: left out and all the others clearly were consulted. And
Speaker 1: from what I can see, you're really the only one
Speaker 1: that is raising this issue in this way.
Speaker 2: So so there has been other industry bodies, specific in
Speaker 2: a telecommunications space. That's todays that there has been the
Speaker 2: microfinance institution as it raised it, and we have the
Speaker 2: view that more people are raised it as as starts
Speaker 2: really impacting their businesses. But I think again to put
Speaker 2: on record, Steven, and in all our previous communication, we
Speaker 2: did state that we did raise our concerns BIA Sabric
Speaker 2: and that was that was the channel that was offered
Speaker 2: to us. But off the back of the decision, it's
Speaker 2: clear that the concerns we raised seems to have not
Speaker 2: been considered when making this decision. And again I think
Speaker 2: we've continuously put on the record is that we've never
Speaker 2: been anti surprice increase. What we question is the quantum,
Speaker 2: the timing, and you think there are better ways to
Speaker 2: do it, and I think the initial open letter eluded
Speaker 2: alluded to that, and I think we've been very consistent
Speaker 2: in what we've communicated. And additionally, subsequent all of this
Speaker 2: is that we've been unable to sit across the table
Speaker 2: with the Minister and it's still something we'd absolutely love
Speaker 2: to do to find what we believe the best way
Speaker 2: forward to And it's again not about not about the
Speaker 2: bank specifically Time Bank, but again it's about it's about
Speaker 2: the people. We think these kind of decisions ultimately put impact.
Speaker 1: Okay, the other point Home Affairs makes is that institutions
Speaker 1: have been running their entire client databases through the system
Speaker 1: virtually every day. There's been huge abuse. People have been
Speaker 1: doing it too often. I understand there can occasionally be
Speaker 1: reasons to do that, but is there any option that
Speaker 1: you have, apart from raising the price that would stop
Speaker 1: that kind of Well, it does look like abuse to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's where these kind of conversations
Speaker 2: become important, because we are of you. There are lots
Speaker 2: of ways to do it, and I think we would support,
Speaker 2: we would support the logic to say that if you're
Speaker 2: doing it just for the sake of doing it with
Speaker 2: there's no call it legislative obligation to verify identity. I
Speaker 2: think we could agree that that's abuse and by no
Speaker 2: means is that ever what we've done. And I think
Speaker 2: we're large in the industry. I don't think that there's
Speaker 2: been been happening, and that's why I think a really
Speaker 2: constructive conversation between people like ourselves and the Minister would
Speaker 2: be very welcome.
Speaker 1: Joslin Jacobs, thanks very much, indeed, Chief commercial officer at
Speaker 1: Time Bank,