According to the latest numbers released by the Government, more than 40 crore 29 lakh Aadhar card numbers have been issued to Indian citizens. This represents nearly 35 percent of India’s population.
Majority of people who have applied initially are either Government officials or BPL families or school students and people who basically need Aadhar card for carrying out some or the activity with state agencies. Many urban dwellers have not applied as yet and the reasons are varied, but for most, the biggest reason is that not having Aadhar is not affecting them much.
However, going forward, that scenario might change. Having a Aadhar card will cut down time required on many things like getting a new mobile connection, opening a Bank account or a trading account etc.
Know Your Customer or KYC is a mandatory process that most financial institutions and mobile companies need to complete in regards to all their customers. Aadhar card is already a valid KYC instrument, still the KYC process much longer time.
In month of May, UIDAI had announced e-KYC as one of the services that will be able to electronically verify identity and address proof of the residents. Today, more detailed information on e-KYC was released.
e-KYC will definitely be a big step forward as the process promises to be completely seamless, realtime, secure and without any hassles for the consumers.
Key Features Of e-KYC
- Fully Paperless: e-KYC is fully electronic and hence eliminates need of paper of any kind. This also helps avoiding any kind of forgery identity-fraud as there are no photocopies required and no third person is able to view any kind of consumer information.
- Consent Based: The e-KYC can only be done after exclusive consent of the consumer
- Fully Secure: Both end points of data transfer are fully secured and use encryption along with the digital signature. This ensures that no unauthorized party can tamper or access any data
- Instantaneous: The service is electronic and fully automated and KYC data is furnished in real-time without any manual intervention
- Information management: Because the entire data is machine readable, it is possible for the service provider to directly store it as the customer record in their database for purposes of service, audit, etc. without human intervention making the process low cost and error free.
e-KYC is not only beneficial to consumers, but also to service providers because they do not have to store any kind of photo copies. Everything is centralized and stored digitally helping them save on paper costs. Additionally, e-KYC is instantaneous so service providers can start consumer service immediately, which goes a long way in ensuring customer satisfaction.
There is no doubt that e-KYC is a win-win for both consumers as well as service providers. And with it’s launch, people now have a bigger incentive to apply for Aadhar cards, which they have been putting off!
