IDFC Aadhaar Pay launched

Indian government prodded all banks to move to the Aadhaar Pay platform at the launch of IDFC Aadhaar Pay - the Aadhaar linked cashless merchant solution, offered by IDFC Bank.

Aadhaar Pay is a service for merchants which will enable them to receive payments from customers without any physical payment instrument. The Aadhaar Pay app has to be downloaded by merchants on their phones and linked to an Aadhaar biometric reader. Once the merchant has this infrastructure in place, consumers can start transacting.

To use this service, the customer has to first link his/her bank account to the Aadhaar number. To make a payment, the consumer just has to select the bank’s name and enter the Aadhaar number. The fingerprint is the password to authenticate the transaction.

IDFC claims the service has been launched after successful pilots across 16 states in a span of three months. Around 1,500 merchants have already enabled digital transactions for customers who used their fingerprint as a digital identity to carry out cashless payments.

Currently, the service has been rolled out only for small value transactions such as payment of grocery bills to vendors and purchases made at a milk booth and so on.

Currently, the transaction limit on Aadhaar enabled payments system is INR 10,000 (EUR 142).

Earlier Mahindra Comviva, a global provider of mobility solutions, announced the launch of payPLUS Aadhaar Pay, a merchant payment acceptance solution that leverages India Stack for merchant payments (cf. Smart Insights Weekly #17-09).