The unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) has a new offering called e-KYC (electronic-know your customer) for streamlining the process of initiation of new customers at various facilities, especially banks.

Speaking at the 'e-KYC on boarding' workshop held in Mumbai on 19th August, UIDAI Chairman, Nandan Nilekani said that e-KYC will authorise UIDAI to give Aadhar details of citizens to service providers to allow instant activation of services like opening of bank accounts, getting a new mobile connection.

“The Ministry of Finance has already recognised e-KYC as a valid document for all financial services under the Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) Act and UIDAI is working with sector regulators for extending e-KYC to their respective sectors. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI),Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI),Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) have all recognised that Aadhar can be used for e-KYC. So the only question now is that e-KYC be made valid too” Nilekani said. "Now the regulators will look at this approval (by the finance and Law the ministries) and would take an appropriate action and we do hope it will be positive also."

UIDAI has kept aside a provision of Rs 150 crore to make e-KYC popular and so that they could procure one lakh units of the device and distribute them to service providers. e-KYC makes the entire process paperless instantaneous, secure, economical and non-reputable and helps in enhancing customer convenience and business efficiency across sectors that require proof of identity and address to open customer accounts. Answering a question on how robust is Aadhar data security and privacy and if it can be misused UIDAI Chairman said, “the data has very high standards of security, privacy and encryption and includes very simple information. It is to authenticate you where you are an online participant. You go somewhere and say you are ‘ X ‘ and Aadhaar will verify that you are ‘X.

And second, on your authorisation, we release your KYC details to a common party . These are the only two uses of this system. It is pure identification system. Responding to another question that banks are not clear on seeding of Aadhar numbers with accounts Nilekani said that the banks will have to figure out ways, like advancing of avenues and channels, to address this issue. “We are working very closely with the banks to see that seeding can grow. In the last few weeks seeding has risen quite dramatically and today the seeding level in the national Payment corporation of India (NPCI) is almost 20 billion which is quite remarkable and I am quite confident that the banks will be able to seed quite fast.”

With more than 40 crore and 29 lakh (400 million) Aadhar numbers already issued till end of July, the Maharashtra government sounded hopeful to meet its target of 60 crore Aadhar enrollments by 2014. It is issuing 2 crore Aadhar numbers every month. Clocking around 6.5 crore Aadhar numbers, Andhra Pradesh has emerged as the top performer followed by Maharashtra with over 6.2 crores enrollments so far.