After Aadhaar card linked businesses, smartphones,and railway tickets, it’s the turn of banking sector to aggressively push linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar database.
Govt. of India is pushing all banks to encourage their customers to link their bank accounts with Aadhaar Cards and soon a major campaign would be unleashed all across the banks for the same.
ATM kiosks, bank branches and Internet banking portals would now be used for prompting users to connect with Aadhaar database, besides, special events would be organized to encourage the same.
Although there are 100 crore + Aadhaar Card users, very few bank accounts are linked with them. As per rough estimates, only 30 crore bank accounts have been linked with Aadhaar Card, which means that more than 50% of bank accounts are still not linked with Aadhaar database.
Aadhaar Push: The ATM Way
There are 1.5 lakh ATMs across India and as per the Government, even if 10 requests to link Aadhaar Card with their banking account is received per ATM, per day, there can be 4.5 crore requests in a month, thereby exponentially increasing the numbers of Aadhaar Card linked bank accounts.
But why ATMs? A Govt. official justified the move to target ATMs for this Aadhaar push, as he said, “Many people do not use internet banking portals…many would see it a waste of long hours to visit the bank branch to seed their Aadhaar-…But a self-help option on an ATM may make many seed the Aadhaar in a matter of minutes by keying in the number during the ATM transaction transaction..”
As soon as a transaction is completed, the ATM will ask the user to connect their Aadhaar card with bank account, and the whole process would be simplified to bare minimum steps.
Massive Push For Aadhaar Card Linking
Besides ATMs, banks have been asked to launch campaigns across branches and via message prompts on Internet banking portals.
Branches have been asked to distribute forms, which will instantly link user’s Aadhaar Cards with their bank accounts. Internet banking portals would be now populated with messages, encouraging the linking with simple steps. Special ‘Aadhaar Diwas’ have planned, which would be conducted across branches, stadiums and large public places to encourage the linking.
Aadhaar cards makes it easy for the Govt. to transfer money to the beneficiaries of social schemes, compared to bank accounts and ISFC codes. Using Aadhaar card, only one single identifier is used for money transfer, which is a life-long asset. In case the user’s bank account is changed, the single Aadhaar identifier will ensure no issues, as the Aadhaar card database will automatically handle the changes.
Earlier, it was reported that Aadhaar Card would be a mandatory requirement for opening of new bank accounts, which will by-default ensure that the bank account is linked with Aadhaar database.
I dont think people will even bother to link their aadhar number to their bank accounts, this is for one simple reason that it will create more transparency on their overall financials and people generally dont want to get into that. Thus I feel mandating it is the only way in which this can be achieved.