We missed this earlier. Any new card acceptance infrastructure deployed (POS machines and ATMs) by banks will have to be enabled for processing payment transactions using Aadhaar-based biometric authentication, according to this Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notification. The RBI says that any new card acceptance infrastructure needs to be compliant with Aadhaar and biometric scanners from January 1st, 2017. Note that this is not the first time the RBI has sent a notification to banks about Aadhaar-enabled POS and ATMs. It had sent out a notification back in November 2013 which was met with opposition from banks who said that the cost of new machines would be too high and would the Aadhaar would find very little acceptance in authentication of payments. The RBI then shelved decision for Aadhaar-based authentication for payments in May 2014. The Aadhaar did not have a proper legal framework in 2013 and the Supreme Court ruled that it cannot be made mandatory for services. However, the Aadhaar Act was passed in Parliament in March as a money bill and notified it in July. This made Aadhaar mandatory for people to avail financial subsidies and benefit. It would also operationalized the Act and gave it a legal framework for the issuance and use of the Aadhaar. Meanwhile, banks on their part, have been increasing linking bank accounts with Aadhaar under the Jan Dhan Yojana financial inclusion programme. As of October 5, more than 15.5 crore accounts were opened under Jan Dhan Yojana with more than 13.05 crore accounts linked to Aadhaar. POS terminals…
