In a good news for bank customers who do not have debit card but possess an Aadhaar, the government has allowed a facility whereby such people can activate the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) soon. The service was supposed to start on Monday, but reports suggested that it needed to be delayed since the banks were not prepared for it.
Getting UPI services through Aadhaar will benefit those who do not have a debit card. Many senior citizens in India do not possess a debit card, but with changing times have to adapt to online modes of payment — especially after three waves of the pandemic that digitised the entire world.
Aadhaar UPI Activation Delayed
In September last year, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) had first announced regarding the system of activating UPI through Aadhaar. However, since that announcements, banks and other stakeholders have delayed the UPI Aadhaar activation several times. The deadline was extended from December 15 2021, to March 15 2022.
“Aadhaar OTP authentication in lieu of debit card for customer onboarding on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to enable customer on boarding on UPI using Aadhaar OTP, in addition to debit card. Along with the feature details and guidelines, compliance timeline was mentioned as 15th December 2021. Due to delay in readiness owning to other priority product feature launch across ecosystem, compliance timelines are extended to 15th March 2022,” the NPCI had said last year.
“However, this would be possible only if the UPI application is used on the same mobile which has the Aadhaar-registered mobile number and the same number is registered with the bank. NPCI had initially asked banks to comply by December 15, 2021. But due to a delay in readiness as priority was given to other product features, the timeline was extended to March 15, 2022,” it added.
Currently, most banks demand customers to download their mobile application and activate UPI via debit cards. This means that only those who have access to digital bank services can utilise the UPI feature. Many rural people, who have a bank account, still do not have a debit card and therefore cannot avail this feature at present. However, the UPI Aadhaar activation can help them make the payment system easier.
How to Activate UPI via Aadhaar
The new feature will do away with the need of a debit card altogether. This will fetch your data from the UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) when you give your Aadhaar number while registering yourself for UPI.
After you enter your Aadhaar number, you will receive an OTP on your registered mobile number. However, this number should be the same one that is registered with your bank account. After you enter the OTP, your details will be verified and after successful verification, you can avail the services.
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