Fingerprint-enabled Aadhaar Pay may soon become a reality in rural areas

In a bid to make poor and illiterate in the rural areas adopt to digital payments, the government is now giving Aadhaar Pay a push as it will ensure financial transactions by just using fingerprint.

Aadhaar Pay is a merchant version of Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AEPS) and the government hopes that it will be an alternative for all online and card transactions which require password and PIN. It will facilitate merchants to take cashless payments from a customer as it will only require Aadhaar number, name of the bank (from where the money is to be deducted) and finger print for authentication.

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) CEO AB Pandey said Aadhaar Pay works on any android-based phone, even a low cost one, with an attached finger biometric device.

"This ensures digital transactions which are cardless, PINless... There is no need of smartphone for the customers,” he told ET.

In a move to make Aadhaar Pay popular, the government has asked banks to enrol 30-40 merchants per branch so that they are able to take cashless payments from customers.

At present five banks - Andhra Bank, IDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, State Bank of India and Syndicate Bank - have gone live over Aadhaar Pay and several banks are in the process of launching pilots on the app.