Banks, cash-in-transit companies, security agencies monitor load shedding risk
As there is more public backlash and planned protests against the energy crisis, there’s been no significant increase in ATM crimes as a result of load shedding.
This is according to South African Bank Risk Information Centre’s (SABRIC) Nischall Mewallal, who spoke at a National Press Club event in Pretoria on Tuesday.
“In terms of domestic instability, the form of protest action we’ve observed already is that it’s highly organised…What we’ve not observed is the kind of violence like the destruction we had seen in banking infrastructure when we had the [July] unrest. We’ve not observed any sort of destruction arising out of protest action.”
SABRIC assessed possible security risks in the sector and its implications on infrastructure, business continuity, and cash availability.
He said load shedding has been an area for specific focus for the Reserve Bank, the banking associations, SABRIC, the individual banks and the cash-in-transit sector who have all been planning around the grid instability.
“One of the most important scenarios that we recently been focusing on, for maybe more than the last six months now, has been the impact of a stage 8 load shedding schedule and the potential of what would happen if there was a grid collapse.”
While many have reported some frustration with banking services during power outages, especially under higher stages, Mewallal said this is mostly because of telecommunications infrastructure not performing optimally at the time.
“All the aspects that allow you to transact, the customer has experienced some degree of disruption, and that’s not because of anything other than that the mobile or data service providers are unable to ensure the high performance of their data services; and this is often because batteries tend to run out because of the congested types of load shedding schedule. In the event that we would find ourselves in stage 8 load shedding which exceeds between 12 and 15 hours…we would certainly find ourselves in a difficult situation.”
Mewallal said while we remain a cash-intensive society, he advises against keeping hard cash in case of disrupted online services.
He added that they have noted an increase in online scams involving alternative energy sources such as solar panels and transformers.
CASH IN TRANSIT INDUSTRY
Meanwhile, Grant Clark from the Cash In Transit Association of South Africa said the rolling power cuts have disrupted the businesses and posed a security risk for the more 3,5000 vehicles transporting cash across the country.
“It’s extremely difficult. You get to a client’s premises the power’s down; how do you do that pickup? So, you don’t do that pickup and you move to the next client, it puts risk on that vehicle again to go back. The vehicles are out longer, the systems in the vehicles need to be powered up and maintained. Load shedding is a massive concern for us, especially when we speak of total blackout.”
Speaking at the media briefing on Tuesday;, CIT-SA, SABRIC, the Institute for Security Studies, as well as the Geopolitical Intelligence Advisory, said there is constant work being done to put measures in place to mitigate against operational and security risks brought on by the energy crisis.
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