According to The World Bank, an estimated 1.7 billion adults worldwide (or 31% of adults) do not have a basic bank account. This implies that the solutions are not yet affordable or designed to fit low-income users in the current financial services scenarios. This warrants a need for Financial inclusion around the world.
Financial inclusion refers to efforts made to make financial products and services accessible and affordable to all individuals and businesses, irrespective of the company size or net worth. At its core, it aims to remove barriers that exclude people from participating in financial services. With over 65% of the population living in rural areas in India, financial inclusion intends to make everyday financial services available to most of the population – and at a reasonable cost.
To speed track financial inclusion in India, RBI constructed two working groups on MicroATM standards and Central Infrastructure & Connectivity for Aadhaar based financial inclusion transactions. One such solution is AePS (Aadhaar-enabled Payment System).
According to NPCI, AePS is a bank-led model which allows interoperable financial inclusion transactions at PoS through the Business Correspondent of any bank using the Aadhaar authentication.
The only requirements for customers for transacting with AePS are the bank name, the Aadhaar number, and fingerprint captured during enrollment. Such ease of use has ensured that the value of transactions through AePS has nearly doubled to INR 21,978.51 crore in January 2021 from INR 11,286.61 crore in January 2020 (NPCI). Over the last few months, AePS has given a boost to technology consumption and continues to contribute positively toward business growth in the country.
Building cashless India with AePS:
AePS is a safe, secure payment method provided by the NPCI that facilitates easy withdrawal of cash and other basic banking benefits. It enables customers to withdraw cash hassle-free without the need for cards. Any bank account holder can access a plethora of services with simple authentication with biometric details. Customers can also withdraw DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer), government relief funds and cash from their bank accounts linked with Aadhaar.
Objectives:
- To empower a bank customer to use Aadhaar as their identity to access their respective Aadhaar enabled bank account and perform basic transactions.
- To sub-serve the Government of India and RBI’s goal in furthering financial inclusion in the country.
- To aid the goal of RBI in the electronification of payments.
- To facilitate seamless inter-operability across banks in a secure manner.
- To facilitate disbursement of government entitlements using Aadhaar and authenticated as supported by UIDAI.
- To build a foundation for a full range of Aadhaar-based financial services.
Objectives:
- eKYC
- Best Finger detection
- Demo Auth
- Tokenization
- Aadhaar Seeding Status
AePS has been significantly popular in rural areas and has witnessed a surge in use due to the pandemic and lockdown – and this is only set to grow. Advancements in fields such as fintech and digital transactions make Financial Inclusion easier to achieve.
You can check out how to get started with AePS for your enterprise with Mobileware Technologies here.