Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS)

Why in news?

• The Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) in India has recently faced exploitation by cybercriminals, leading to unauthorized access to users' bank accounts.
• Scammers have been using leaked biometric details to bypass the need for One Time Passwords (OTPs) and drain funds from unsuspecting victims.

About Aadhaar enabled payment system:

• AePS is developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that allows people to carry out financial transactions on a PoS (Point of Sale / Micro ATM) by furnishing just their Aadhaar number and verifying it with the help of their fingerprint/iris scan.
• With the help of this payment system, funds can be transferred from one bank account to another simply through their Aadhaar numbers.
• The only inputs required for a customer to do a transaction under this scenario are:
  • Bank Name
  • Aadhaar Number
  • Fingerprint captured during enrollment.

Services Offered through AePS:

• Banking services:
  • Cash Deposit, Cash Withdrawal, Balance Enquiry, Mini Statement, Aadhaar to Aadhaar Fund Transfer, Authentication and BHIM Aadhaar Pay
• Other Services offered by AePS:
  • eKYC, Best Finger detection, Tokenization and Aadhaar Seeding Status

How does AEPS work?

• The AEPS system leverages Aadhaar online authentication and enables Aadhaar Enabled Bank Accounts (AEBA) to be operated in anytime-anywhere banking mode through Micro ATMs.
• The beneficiary bearing a UID number approaches a business correspondent (BC) with the request to withdraw cash.
  • A Business Correspondent (BC) is an approved Bank Agent providing basic banking service using a Micro ATM.
• The business correspondent feeds beneficiary’s UID number, fingerprints and amount into the micro-ATM.
• The Aadhaar server authenticates the beneficiary’s ID and gets his bank account using the ID mapper. Once this is successful, the debit and credit transaction is carried out and then a message is sent to the beneficiary and BC and beneficiary gets his cash.

PRELIMS QUESTION

With reference to ‘Aadhar enabled payment system’, consider the following statements:

1. It is developed by the National Payments Corporation of India

2. AePS does not offer cash deposit and withdrawal facilities

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer