New Delhi, Jan 27 (KNN) Government is all set to launch Aadhaar Pay service which is a non-traditional digital payment system without a need of card, pin, password or mobile with the consumer.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Electronics & IT and Law & Justice, today said, “Now in its fourth phase, with demonetisation and Digital India drive towards less-cash economy, Aadhaar is all set to be the game changer with Aadhaar Pay – a non-traditional digital payment system without a need of card, pin, password or mobile with the consumer.” 

With 68th Republic Day, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has achieved another landmark by generating 111 crore Aadhaar in a population of 125 crore plus.

As of now, 14 banks have come on board for Aadhaar Pay and the service will be launched soon, Prasad said told reporters. 

"We are in talks with other banks too. The service will be launched very soon," he said. 

With the Aadhaar Pay, soon to be launched, he said any person with his Aadhaar number linked to Bank account, can make and / or receive payment, with his thumb impression alone. There is absolutely no need for him to have any phone, debit card etc.. This will be available to all the persons having Aadhaar linked bank accounts, whose number stands at 39 crores now, which was only 6.7 crores in May 2014. About 2 crore Aadhaar numbers are linked to Bank accounts every month.”

Dispelling apprehensions on privacy and data security, Prasad said, “The Government is vigilant towards privacy protection and database security which is our paramount concern. We have Aadhaar Act 2016 which has strict provisions for protection of data and privacy.”

As on date, Aadhaar’s total saturation percentage is 91.7% (as per Census 2011) while over 99% adult population above the age of 18 have been assigned Aadhaar numbers. Twenty two States/UTs have more than 90% saturation.

He said Aadhaar Enabled Payment System ( AEPS ) on which 119 banks are live. This helps the Banking Correspondents to go to the doorsteps in rural villages, facilitating banking transactions, with the help of Micro-ATMs, linked with Aadhaar. More than 33.87 crore transactions have taken place through AEPS, which was only 46 lakhs in May 2014. While only 7,406 AEPS points were available in May 2014, we now have over 1,65,000 agents available in the villages.

Prasad said the opening of bank accounts with Aadhaar eKYC, in which 97 banks are live and 4.47 crore bank accounts have been opened till now, which was only 1 lakh in May 2014.

Aadhaar Payment Bridge (APB), a seamless payment facility, which enables disbursal of benefits /other payments directly to the beneficiary’s account, popularly known as Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT),  has shown considerable growth in the past two years. Total number of transactions on the APB were logged at 167.36 crore worth Rs.44,967 crore which has risen by ten folds in value since 31st May 2014 (7 crore transactions, worth 4000 crores).