No Debit Card Needed For Activating UPI! Aadhaar OTP Is Enough To Activate UPI (How Will It Work?)

From March 15, banks will have to offer account holders the option to activate UPI using the Aadhaar and OTP instead of debit card.

How It Will Work

The feature was introduced by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in September 2021.

It will allow customers without a debit card or without an activated one to begin using UPI.

This is made possible by connecting NPCI to the Unique Identification Authority of India on behalf of the customer’s bank.

Banks Miss Deadline On Implementation

NPCI enabled this feature but the banks had to implement the same for their customers.

NPCI had initially asked banks to comply by December 15, 2021 but this got delayed since other product features were given priority.

So now the deadline is March 15, 2022.

Timeline Extension

An NPCI press release states that Aadhaar OTP authentication can be used in lieu of a debit card for customer onboarding on UPI. 

The compliance timeline was initially set to December 15, 2021 but this had to be extended to March 15, 2022 due to delay in readiness of banks.

Current Scenario

At present, most bank applications require the customer to verify themselves using their debit card.

This means that only those who have access to digital banking could access the UPI feature.

Bankers also say that many account holders have not activated their debit cards.

Financial Inclusion Initiative

The RBI is trying to improve financial inclusion by offering the UPI feature to feature phones without requiring internet.

RBI governor Shaktikanta Das launched UPI 123Pay through which feature phone users could transfer money using IVR, missed call, feature phone app, or proximity sound-based payments.

This feature will help extend access to UPI to people in rural areas and allow India’s 40 crore feature phone users to access the same.