Aadhaar Enabled Payment Service(Aeps) -- Courtesy Npci

[kesav 127]

Services Offered by AEPS

1) Balance Enquiry

2) Cash Withdrawal

3) Cash Deposit

4) Aadhaar to Aadhaar Fund Transfer

5) Gateway Authentication Services

http://www.npci.org.in/AEPSObjectives.aspx

http://www.npci.org.in/documents/AEPSArchitecture.pdf

IndePay Launches Banking Correspondent Services In North East India

Indepay Networks has tied up with Tripura State Co-Operative Bank Limited (TSCB) to launch rural banking services. The company will use a biometric enabled, UID compliant Micro ATM infrastructure to process and deliver rural payments, including those for government schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGA).

The program was piloted at a few branches of TSCB last year, and is now being expanded throughout Tripura, with biometric smart cards are being distributed. Indepay plans to open an extended rural banking branch in each village through the Banking Correspondent model, and also offer non financial services such as Rail/Air ticket booking and utility bill payments. IndePay has a financial payment and transaction processing business that includes point-of-sale services, card issuance and master merchant acquiring services for debit, prepaid, credit cards, rural banking, electronic distribution of prepaid recharge and content, money transfer and utility bill payment services.

Banking Correspondents on the rise

A few days ago, Airtel and SBI had announced their banking correspondent JV, in which Airtel’s retail network will be used as service points. this was followed by Vodafone announcing a tie-up with ICICI Bank. Similarly, Nokia tied up with Union Bank of India where Nokia Stores will be the BCs. Idea Cellular also signed up as a banking correspondent to Axis Bank. Tata Indicom and MChek had also received funds from the GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked fund to provide Microfinance services in rural areas.

With telecom operators and handset manufacturers, which already have a fairly large retail reach, is there room for service providers like IndePay and Eko to launch the Banking Correspondent model?

source :: http://www.medianama.com/2011/02/223-indepay-launches-banking-correspondent-services-in-north-east-india/

Indepay enables rural banking with Biometric technology in North East India

Indepay Networks, an enabler of Rural Payment Infrastructure, launched its RBI guidelines based Banking Correspondent (BC) program for Tripura State Co-Operative Bank Limited (TSCB) yesterday. The program was inaugurated by Hon’ble Minister for Rural Development, State of Tripura, Sh. Jitendra Chowdhury, at Kalachara Gram Panchayat.

Indepay – Electronic Payments for Rural India

Indepay ( Website www.indepay.com) , a payment processor, is enabling benefits of Rural Programs such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGA) to reach the rural masses through innovation in payments technology. By extending its infrastructure to the last mile in the rural areas, Indepay through the use of biometric technology, is ensuring that benefits of governmental programs reaches the people it is intended for.

The State of Tripura, with an annual NREGA allotment of over INR 500 crores, has close to a million MGNREGA beneficiaries who receive employment through the program. In addition to MGNREGA beneficiaries the state has a further quarter of a million beneficiaries of National Old Age Pension (NOAP), Social Security Pension (SSP) and other similar programs. Indepay with its biometric enabled, UID compliant MicroATM infrastructure is addressing these opportunities through partners such as TSCB by leveraging its nationwide rural payments infrastructure.

Tripura State Co-Operative Bank Limited

The program, which was successfully piloted for over a year at certain branches of TSCB in North Tripura, is being scaled throughout the State through the disbursement of Biometric enabled smart cards to MGNREGA beneficiaries, starting with Kalachara and Manubazar branches in Satchand block. Indepay completed the enrollment of all MGNREGA beneficiaries in North and South Tripura Districts through enrollment camps held at each panchayat with the help of over hundred trained enrollment agents supported by the respective District Magistrates and Block Development Officers (BDOs) and the necessary State machinery.

source :: http://indiamicrofinance.com/indepay-rural-banking-biometric-technology-north-east-india.html

A very good social initiative.

Signs of Aadhaar replacing PAN.

:clap:

[copperco2 24]

AADHAR is totally different from PAN. I wonder of NN even knows what exactly he is going to have in his hands when he is done with it.

[kesav 127]

'AADHAAR' is envisioned to remove PF number, Driving License Number, Voter ID number, PAN number etc.,(any other state/central Govt issued individual specific numbers) with one single 'AADHAAR' number.

[kesav 127]

Here is the link to FAQ on AEPS.

Highly informative and crystal clear.....

http://www.npci.org.in/documents/AEPSFAQCust.pdf

AEPS is going to play a major role in MHNREGA and PDS.

Edited February 24, 2011 by kesav

[Honest 836]

^^^

Thanks for posting the faqs Kesav Bhai. +1

[kesav 127]

NPCI rolls out Aadhar-enabled payment system

MUMBAI: The National Payment Corporation, or NPCI, has rolled out its Aadhar-enabled payment system (AEPS) project to make banking easier for those at the bottom of the pyramid by involving business correspondents . NPCI has partnered with three banks for the project.

It is also planning to rope in Nabard for involving rural account holders into the core banking fold. AEPS will promote financial inclusion and help customers having no-frills accounts to access banking services from business correspondents from across banks.

Through this facility , customers need not go to the bank with which s/he holds an account. NPCL defines it as “a bank-led model, enabling online financial inclusion transaction at PoS or point of sale, or the MicroATM, through Business Correspondent (BC) of one bank for customers of another using Aadhar Authentication .”

The pilot project being run in districts of Jharkhand (where the first unique identity authority, or UID numbers, have been provided) in association with three banks — ICICI bank, Union bank of India and Bank of India.

Under AEPS, customers would be able to check their balance enquiries, withdraw and deposit cash and transfer funds from one UID number to the other from any of the business correspondents.

Business correspondents act on behalf of bank branches in the absence of brick and mortar branch and provide banking services. They have been important agents of financial inclusion .

source :: http://m.economictimes.com/PDAET/articleshow/7624641.cms

Let us wish that this pilot project(in Jharkhand) becomes huge success....

:cheer:

Edited March 11, 2011 by kesav

[kesav 127]

Flash UID for pay, govt tells staffers

MUMBAI: In a bid to weed out frauds, the government has decided that all its employees should have the Aadhar Unique Identification Number (UID) to draw their salary. Maharashtra will be the first state in the country to implement the system.

The UID will have demographic and biometric information of an individual. The government, which has nearly 37 lakh staffers, hopes that the system will stop corruption among unscrupulous employees, who have been known for drawing salaries from various departments at the same time. On one occasion, a department continued to pay salary in the name of a deceased staffer.

Nearly 37 lakh employees are working in government or semi-government bodies across the state in Maharashtra. There have been instances when an employee has been found drawing salaries from various departments or the payment continue to happen even though the employee is dead resulting in loss to the exchequer.

Rajesh Agarwal, secretary of accounts and treasury, issued a GR on Monday, listing the steps to be taken by department heads and state employees to register themselves under the UID project. "Departments have been given their deadlines. The process will be conducted in phases, the first slot being slated for April 20 to June 30, and that will include all government workers," an official said. "Salary will not be paid to those who fail to get their UID numbers before the deadline." The subsequent phases will cover teaching and non-teaching staff of aided schools and colleges, zilla parishad, gram panchayat and social welfare staffers.

The employee will cease to draw a salary if he fails to get the UID number before the deadline expires for his/her department.

The official said, "This would be first ever application to be developed and put into use under the Aadhar UID scheme and all the modalities for the implementation has been worked out in consultation with UID authority of India."

With the UID card-which is supposed to bear the photo of an employee's iris, impression of his fingers and other basic details-the government can easily track a fraud. "There have been cases of the same person holding jobs in different departments by making minor changes to his name," an official said. For example if an name of the employee is Santosh Arvind Chavan at one place, he registers his names at Chavan Santosh Aor Chavan BA in some other place." "In another case, a staffer started worked in a private firm but put his 'dummy' in the government."

All these practices are done with the tacit approval of some higher-ups in the government department. Hence, it becomes difficult to identify such case.Once the UID system is in place, the employee will have to provide his Iris photograph of his/her eyes along with a impression of all fingers of both the hands. Along with the basis details, the state government employee will also have provide this employee ID card details along with the name of the department with which he is working.

The official said, "The entire process is full-proof and has been developed to weed out duplication. In the case of government employee, the salary will only be released after the identify of the employee is ascertained through authentication machine. "Maharashtra is the first state to implement this project.

At present, 30 lakh people across the state have enrolled for the UID project. Of them, nearly 5 lakh have already been issued the card. A total of 800 enrolment centers having 2,500 enrolment stations.

source :: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Flash-UID-for-pay-Maharashtra-govt-tells-staffers/articleshow/8031799.cms

[kesav 127]

Cardless banking with Aadhaar number may soon become reality

Some banks and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which is spearheading the ambitious Aadhaar project, are looking to allow customers operate ATMs armed with only their 12-digit Aadhaar number; the access will be facilitated by a biometric scan

New Delhi: Soon, it may be possible for customers to operate ATMs without cards. And, eventually, shop without credit cards.

Some banks and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which is spearheading the ambitious Aadhaar project, are looking to allow customers operate ATMs armed with only their 12-digit Aadhaar number; the access will be facilitated by a biometric scan.

Experts say the move could reduce cost of operations for banks and also reduce instances of debit card fraud.

Even while UIDAI is still working to fine-tune the model, state-owned Corporation Bank is readying to implement the new model. “We will be launching this service in the next three-four weeks for our customers in Delhi,” said an official of the bank, asking not to be named.

With a mere 58,000 Aadhaar numbers issued in Delhi (4.2 million have been issued across India), the number of customers using Corporation Bank’s service will be limited at first. But it will increase. UIDAI hopes to issue 600 million numbers by 2014.

The number of credit and debit cards as on January stands at over 230 million in the country, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI); the issue cost of each card varies between Rs. 20 and Rs. 80.

For cardless transactions to become a reality, customers will have to link their bank accounts with the Aadhaar number. At the time of enrolment, UIDAI is giving people the option of either opening a new bank account, which will be Aadhaar-enabled, or linking to an existing one.

UIDAI has already done field tests in Jharkhand and is readying its infrastructure to support bulk transactions. “The servers and systems are currently being tested to see if they can take at least 100 million transactions simultaneously... UIDAI is working to ready them by July this year,” said an official familiar with the development, who did not want to be identified.

Both the officials independently confirmed that the approval from the regulator is in place. “The Reserve Bank of India has given an in-principle approval for the plan, but the final go-ahead will be needed closer to the actual launch,” the second official said.

“RBI’s main concern is safety... This will take care of all the safety aspects,” added the Corporation Bank official.

“It is one of the safest ways to do banking... It will make sure that the right person is using the right account,” said the second official.

The move to cardless banking will take quite some time. And the move to cardless shopping some more. That’s because banks will have to install a biometric reader in all their ATM machines and will also have to upgrade the applications on them to make them cardless. There were at least 43,000 ATMs across the country as of March 2010, according to RBI. Moreover, the core banking solution, through which banks integrate all transactions across branches, will also have to support the new model.

According to Alpesh Shah, partner and director at Boston Consulting Group, the cardless banking model would have a large impact, but over the next three-five years.

“Banks will have to upgrade their infrastructure, which may take a few years. So there will not be much impact in the next six months to one year. But over a longer term, once the concept catches on, it could change the way banking is done,” he said.

A Union Bank of India official, who also did not want to be identified, said that while Aadhaar will provide sufficient authentication for transactions, it will take some time for banks to adapt to the new system and put in place the necessary infrastructure.

Interestingly, UIDAI is hoping banks will rapidly upgrade their technological infrastructure as a sort of quid pro quo for pushing more business their way. The Aadhaar initiative will be facilitating the opening of several million new bank accounts during the enrolment process. UIDAI is already in the process of empanelling banks for this.

Aadhaar has so far enrolled around 4.2 million people in the country and around 80% of them want a new bank account, according to UIDAI estimates.

To make cardless banking work, UIDAI will have to link its servers at one end to the banks and on the other to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Each bank has its own financial switch, which is connected to the national financial switch (NFS). NFS facilitates routing of ATM transactions through connectivity between the banks’ switches. NPCI does the settlement under this network.

“If banks agree on such a model, NPCI has no problems in switching the transaction,” said A.P. Hota, managing director and chief executive officer of NPCI.

Cashless transactions at retail establishments pose a challenge.

“A card is not built only for use in ATMs. It is meant to be used in other devices also, such as point of sale terminals used in retail outlets... So a bank cannot completely do away with issuing the card,” said an official at IDBI Bank Ltd, who did not want to be identified.

UIDAI does have a plan to enable micropayments even at retail outlets through what it terms micro-ATMs, essentially low-cost hand-held devices with a fingerprint reader.

source :: http://www.livemint.com/2011/04/05234445/Cardless-banking-with-Aadhaar.html

[kesav 127]

Here is another informative presentation on AEPS.

http://uidai.gov.in/UID_PDF/Front_Page_Articles/Strategy/Exclusion_to_Inclusion_with_Micropayments.pdf