The Unique Identification Authority of India is working with banks in the country to establish incentive programs to get shopkeepers in rural areas to start accepting Aadhaar-enabled payments, reports Deccan Herald.
Aadhaar is, of course, the country’s national biometric ID system, which is expanding to more and more applications, with the vast majority of the country’s population now enrolled. Late last year, the UIDAI announced a new mobile payment platform that would allow citizens to pay for things using their Aadhaar numbers, using fingerprint or iris scanning for transaction verification.
The vision is now being realized, but just as the UIDAI has endeavored to expand the use of Aadhaar in other applications in rural areas, such as through a recent initiative to integrate it into a subsidy program for farm workers, it’s also working to ensure that the payment program is adopted by smaller merchants outside of urban areas. To that end, it’s negotiating with “all major banks” to work out an incentive program for merchants, according to UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey.
The UIDAI’s mobile biometric payments efforts go hand-in-hand with a larger effort to transform the country into a cashless society, with Deccan Herald reporting that Aadhaar-enabled payments have dramatically increased in recent months.
Source: Deccan Herald
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January 20, 2017 – by Alex Perala
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