Make Aadhaar Enabled Payments

After demonetisation, Government is facilitating Aadhaar number-enabled financial transactions through mobile phones as part of converting the country into a cashless economy. Now people will be able to make payments using their Aadhaar cards. This post will tell you how to pay using Aadhaar card.

Economic Times quoted the director general of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Ajay Pandey saying, “Aadhaar-enabled transactions are card-less and pin-less. This would enable Android phones users to digitally transact using their Aadhaar number and fingerprint/iris authentication”.

As you know, India is moving towards a cashless society. This transition phase from cash to no cash transactions enabled many E-Wallet companies like Paytm & Freecharge to grow. To continue day to day life payment system is a must. People have started using different alternatives to tackle cash crunch after demonetisation. People use plastic money more than ever before. Even road side vendors have started using Paytm to accept payments.

Now Government wants Aadhaar-enabled payment to replace debit, credit cards. People can now pay using Aadhaar card. It means you don’t need to have plastic money or e wallets anymore. All you need is an Aadhaar card to make payments.

The initiative can help the government deal with situations like recent demonetisation. Also it will help restrain  black money and bring in more financial transaction transparency.

The government is working on developing a common mobile phone app. This app can be used by shopkeepers and merchants for receiving Aadhaar-enabled payments bypassing credit and debit cards, pin and password.

How To use Aadhaar Card for Payment ?

AEPS in its initial form

AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) in its basic form is a machine known as micro ATM. This machine is similar to POS machines that accept credit/debit cards. The only difference is that instead of any card you need to authenticate your payments using your bio metrics (usually fingerprint).

AEPS machine work

A merchant who needs to accept payment will enter the Aadhaar number and the amount in the machine using the touch interface provided. The customer then needs to authenticate the payment using his/her fingerprint. The amount will be deducted from a bank account that is linked to customers Aadhaar number and credited to the merchant’s bank account.

Aadhaar Pay Merchant App

A merchant will have a smartphone with a finger print scanner connected to it via an application. You will have to place your finger on that scanner to pay using aadhaar. Your bank , which is already linked to your aadhaar number will be debited with the amount you pay to the shopkeeper.

How Aadhaar Pay Merchant App works?

UIDAI has introduced the much awaited Aadhaar Pay Merchant App. Using this aadhaar payment app, merchants can accept payments which will be cashless, cardless and pinless.

• To accept payments, merchants needs to register on the app using the aadhaar number. The registration needs to be authorised using the fingerprint of the merchant.
• Now to accept any payment from the customer, the merchant needs to enter the customer details which include customer Aadhaar number, customer bank name, and amount to be paid by the customer.
• An option to continue or to reject the payment will be provided. Once choosen to proceed, the payment needs to be authorised using the customer’s finger print.
• After successful authentication, the amount will be transfered from the customer’s aadhaar linked bank account to merchant’s aadhaar linked bank account.

Official Video link

Aadhaar Pay App not available on any app store like Google Play here is Why

Like everyone else, we were also waiting for the app to be available for download. But here’s what we came to know about aadhaar pay app:

Currently their is no centralised aadhaar payment app available for download to public. However, some banks have developed apps based on AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) and they are running those in a test phase right now.

Some sources suggest that two banks namely State Bank of India and IDFC bank have developed apps for aadhaar based payments.

IDFC Aadhaar Pay and SBI Aadhaar Payment System

State bank of India is currently testing their aadhaar payment app in some rural area of Maharashtra. IDFC bank has registered 100 merchants on their aadhaar payment system and testing their app. Currently it is very unlikely that you get a chance to make payment using aadhaar pay app.

“Aadhaar pay app has been launched on 25 December 2016.” – This news was making rounds on social media and also thousands of people were looking to download aadhaar pay app. This post shows working of aadhaar pay app on the basis of video shared by digital India Facebook page.

All we can conclude for now is that app is not right now available for download. This means the video which shows the working of app is an idea under construction which is soon going to be reality.

Thanks for reading. Hope to see you again in next Post!