Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, the government has now allowed insurance companies to collect Aadhaar card details under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, in accordance with standard security and privacy measures as per the Aadhaar Act.
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What Does This Move Mean?
The move is aimed at investigating and tracking money laundering into insurance companies and shell companies.
Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said, “To allow these entities to use Aadhaar authentication services under Aadhaar Act with necessary standard security and privacy measures would help these entities to perform in real time, do e-KYC and would also reduce their cost of transaction”.
Pandey, who is also the Revenue Secretary said, “This would also be beneficial to the customers or the investors, especially the small and retail investors, as they need not submit physical papers or documents for KYC.”
Besides preventing money laundering activities it will also ease the KYC process and would reduce cost and time.
An official said use of Aadhaar authentication service by the entities is voluntary and if an investor gives Permanent Account Number (PAN), he or she does not need to go for Aadhaar authentication.
Which Insurance Companies are Eligible?
The Finance Ministry has released a list of 29 insurance companies like Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, Bharti AXA Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, HDFC Life Insurance, HDFC Ergo General Insurance and SBI General Insurance which can collect Aadhaar information from customers for KYC purposes.
Other entities given this permission include Max Life Insurance, PNB Metlife India Insurance, SBI Life Insurance Future Generali India, Reliance Nippon Life Insurance, Apollo Munich Health Insurance, Manipal Cigna Health Insurance, Religare Health Insurance, NSE Data and Analytics, CAMS Investor Services, Computer Age Management Services, and Link Intime India.
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