Five Indian banks have launched Saral Money, an instant prepaid card service that allows users to open a bank account using their Aadhar card for know your customer (KYC) validation, with payments company, Visa, reports The Hindu. Currently, SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank and Axis Bank are participating through payments company, Visa to support the initiative in Delhi - NCR. The service will be offered, in stages, in the rest of the country by the end of 2014. Our readers might remember that speaking at the #NAMA conference, Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of UIDAI, had announced the launch of Aadhar E-KYC powered instant prepaid accounts, for which a pilot project was conducted in New Delhi. He had also stated that UIDAI had partnered with 20 banks, and had tied-up with the NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) and Visa for payments powered by Aadhaar enabled E-KYC (Electronic- Know Your Customer). The Aadhaar powered E-KYC (Electronic- Know Your Customer), utilizes the E-KYC APIs, to allow citizens to avail different services without carrying any physical identification proof. To conduct an E-KYC check, an E-KYC request, along with Aadhaar number and authentication is sent as an input and the name, address, date of birth, gender, and photograph, is received by the agency. (Full video here) How to get the card: Users can get the saral money debit card from grocery shops and bank branches for a nominal fee. As of now it's not clear how much the bank or the business correspondent will charge for the pre-paid card. Users need to…
