With banks facing problems in making credit card swipe machines and ATMs capable of biometric authentication, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has, for the time, suspended implementation of the mandate on all future banking transaction machines.

Banks and credit card-issuing companies shall be able to add on to their PoS network unhindered in the wake of RBI’s latest decision.

The affected financial firms had been complaining about the non-availability of ample number of suppliers for the biometric machines. Also, fingerprint authorization they raised before the RBI would take much more time than earlier.

Usually, according to tests on biometric authorization of ATMs and credit card swipe machines, fingerprints verification took about 15 seconds more on a 3G internet connection than what it took during normal verification. RBI has been working on strong incentives for companies that will make biometric authentication successful.

Meanwhile, pilot tests are being carried out by RBI for cash out of prepaid cards.

In the past, apprehensions have been raised that massive projects like these, where the bank accounts will have to be linked with Aadhar, will involve huge costs that ultimately could be passed to the customers/bank depositors.