UIF introduces new measures for bank account verification to eliminate fraud
In the quest to ensure that the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s Covid-19 Temporary Employee Relief Scheme does not fall prey to criminal elements as has happened, the Fund has introduced new and more stringent controls to verify banking details.
As a result of the introduction of the new safety and security changes, the Fund has had to delay payments. However, over the weekend, it resumed payments and disbursed R 372-million (R372 226 900.92) of Covid-19 TERS benefit claims.
The payment covered claims for April and May lodged by 15 866 employers benefitting 78 283 employees for whose banking details passed the verification process. Further payments were done today (14 July 2020) with some R295-million paid out from 1824 employers benefitting 76 078 workers.
This brings the total paid to date since April 16 to just under R30-billion (R 29 726 359 618.48) covering 6 789 695 workers from 539 953 employers.
As part of the new control measures, the Fund has also introduced a new rule to the system that requires applicants to insert either the Enterprise number (CK/CIPC) or the ID number of the bank account holder in the TERS Online portal, in order to further verify banking details against the authorized claimant.
“This requirement which may seem onerous is critical to ensure banking details are verified before any TERS payment is authorized. Failure to populate the system properly will unfortunately lead to more delays in the payment process,” warns UIF Commissioner, Teboho Maruping.
The Commissioner added that the Fund has been at the receiving end of fraud complaints after it emerged that certain individuals managed to change banking details of their companies and inserted their own.
“This situation has created a need for us to do an upfront account verification and validation before the payment is made, and we expect this to increase our turnaround time by two days as the accounts are verified and validated to ensure that fraud at company level is eliminated and reduced as far as possible. We cannot overemphasize how important it is for companies to provide correct information that can be validated and verified with the banks so that there are no delays with the payment,” said Maruping.
The new changes come on the back of the Fund having paid up to R 1 billion (R 1 012 212 773.31) directly into the bank accounts of 238 086 employees since April 2020, and direct payments to employees have not been affected by the new measures.

Source: Government of South Africa