Photo: Net1 Report to Investors
Previous Project
Net1's Payment System
With the Black Sash, I worked to open the "black box" of CPS' cash transfer payment payment system. We found that CPS's technologies segregated South African grantees in an alternative banking system outside of public oversight. Within this segregated system, CPS was empowered to collect the personal data of 18 million people (33% of the country) through their cash transfer payment contract. They shared this data with their parent company, Net1, and all their sister companies to aggressively market loans and other financial products to grantees at cash transfer pay sites. At their high point, Net1 had registered almost half of all grantees for at least one additional financial product, and deducted repayments from their grant incomes every month. Because Net1 controlled the entire payment stream from the National Treasury to individual accounts, they could deduct repayments early and automatically, before grantees could access their money. Likewise, because CPS and Net1 had few permanent physical locations and their helpline was understaffed and ineffective, grantees could rarely access them to query or stop such repayments. Given these arrangements, CPS and Net1 were able to reduce the risk of default to almost zero and yet they priced their products as if they were lending to a high-risk market. Effectively, CPS and Net1 converted a government-sponsored cash transfer payment program into private profits.
PATHWAYS TO IMPACT:
- The Black Sash and I conducted qualitative and quantitative research around the country about deductions and debt.
- The Black Sash set up a Ministerial Task Team with the Minister of Social Development to present our research and deal with structural issues of grant payment.
- We worked with the media, academia, and at parliament to educate people on deductions and debt.
- The Black Sash filed a Constitutional Court Case to clarify grant payment. The ConCourt decided that SASSA had to develop a new payment system and appointed a Panel of Experts to advise on its development.
- We advised the Panel of Experts on how to build a grant payment that would protect recipients from debt.
IMPACT ACHIEVED:
- We protected 18 million people from predatory lending.
- SASSA contracted a public agency (the Post Office) rather than a private company to pay grants.
- The Black Sash helped designed a ring-fenced bank account to protect against automated debit orders.
- We advocated that a certain number of bank charges would be paid by SASSA each month.
- We ensured all personal data is held by the Department of Home Affairs.
- We advised on the creation of a recourse mechanism for grantees to access.
Advocacy Success
Making grant Payment public
Watch: Grant Grabs 3: The Green Card, which depicts the difficulties grantees experienced with EasyPay.
Photo: Mail and Guardian
Forthcoming: My book, Who Owes What to Whom: Cash Transfers as Racial Capitalism will be out in October 2025 with Duke University Press.
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Photo: Leopold Podlashuc
Read: My dissertation, Taken for Granted: Geographies of Debt and Welfare in South Africa, from University of California Berkeley.
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