Inside India's plan to substitute cash with its citizen's fingerprints

Inside India's plan to substitute cash with its citizen's fingerprints

India simply took its next major step in turning into a cashless society.

IDFC Bank has launched Associate in Nursing app referred to as Aadhaar Pay that aims to assist various its voters while not a smartphone to procure their purchases digitally with simply their fingerprint. 

Merchants are able to transfer the app to their automaton smartphones and fix a fingerprint scanner device. to form payments, patrons can solely select their bank name, input their distinctive Aadhaar variety and scan their fingerprint, that acts as a positive identification to form the payment directly from their checking account connected to their Aadhaar card. 

Over one billion folks in India have already got Associate in Nursing Aadhaar card, creating it the world's largest biometry based mostly identification system. The Indian government intends to link all savings bank accounts within the country with Associate in Nursing Aadhaar card. Currently, concerning four hundred million of the one.12 billion bank accounts area unit connected to Aadhaar cards reports recommending. 

This could be the answer India needed to usher its overwhelming majority of population — that continues to be not connected to the net, is illiterate and does not own smartphones — to cashless digital payments.

Of the country's one.3 billion population, solely concerning 268 million folks had a smartphone at the tip of Q3 2016, per research firm Counterpoint. Of them, not each device is connected to the net. within the wake of country's major move to invalidate money last month, the overwhelming majority of the customers are stranded with no possibility however to queue outside banks and ATMs. 

Another advantage of Aadhaar Pay is neither the businessperson nor the client, is charged any dealing fee, that makes it equivalent to paying by money. The app is already offered at over one hundred businessperson retailers within the states of the province, urban center, and province.

IMAGE: IDFC BANK

"It is [sic] the best thanks to paying because it doesn't need a client to swipe debit cards, keep in mind passwords, or transfer apps. significantly, there aren't any dealing fees for each merchant and customers.  IDFC Aadhaar Pay can accelerate the pace of growth for cashless payments, giving wings to the government’s efforts towards digitization  for inclusive growth,” Dr. Rajiv Lall, Founder MD & CEO, IDFC Bank same in an exceedingly press statement. 

Today's announcement mark a significant enlargement of Unified Payment Interface, that the govt proclaimed solely earlier this year. UPI is government's audacious project to form person-to-person and e-commerce transactions swifter and easier.