NSFAS Allowances For September 2023 Now Being Paid

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has recently confirmed that student allowances for university students have been paid for the month of September 2023. The financial aid scheme said in a statement on Thursday that it will be paying NSFAS allowances to students through its direct payment system on Friday, 01 September 2023.

This comes after several university students raised concerns that NSFAS failed to pay them their allowances on Thursday. 

NSFAS explained:

The scheme had a technical glitch resulting in non-payment of allowances today; however, this has been fixed and NSFAS will affect payment by midnight 31 August 2023 for the amount to reflect in the beneficiaries account by 12h00 01 September 2023. 

According to the bursary scheme the reports indicating that payments to NSFAS beneficiaries have been delayed to 05 September 2023 due to “delays between NSFAS and service providers” were a lie and inacurrate.

Furthermore, NSFAS apologised to students, saying it completely understood “the inconvenience this delay will cause our beneficiaries”. 

We would like to convey our heartfelt apologies for this unfortunate moment and completely understand the inconvenience this delay will cause our beneficiaries. We will always try our best ensure that this never occurs going forward. 

NSFAS Direct Payment System Issues

Over the past few months, the new NSFAS direct payment system has received backlash from students and stakeholders alike.

The system solution was introduced at universities in June 2023. NSFAS partnered with four fintech companies to bring the new payment solution to students.  

These companies include Tenet Technology, Coinvest Africa, Ezaga Holdings and Norraco Corporation.

However, since its implementation there have already been a number of complaints about the system, including students not receiving their funds, exorbitant bank charges, glitches, and unauthorised access resulting in loss of funds.