Businesses Will Now Have To Pay Rs 20 Per Customer For Aadhaar Verification

To verify each customer using Aadhaar authentication for KYC (Know Your Customer) purposes, businesses will now have to pay Rs 20 to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). In addition, 50 paise will be charged for authentication of each transaction carried out.

In a notification by the UIDAI on Thursday, it said, "Aadhaar authentication services shall be charged at the rate of Rs 20 (including taxes) for each e-KYC transaction and Rs 0.50 (including taxes) for each Yes and No authentication transaction from requesting entities."

These charges will be in addition to the license fees and financial disincentives.

However, the regulations in the gazette notification called the "Aadhaar (Pricing of Aadhaar Authentication Services) Regulations, 2019 (No. 1 of 2019)," it said that governmental entities and the Department of Posts shall be exempt from authentication transaction charges. Further, Scheduled Commercial Banks engaged in providing Aadhaar enrolment and update facilities shall be exempt from Authentication transaction charges.

According to a PTI report, these charges will be nominal to the private businesses considering the cost of Rs 150 to 200 that they spend per customer sans Aadhaar on KYC procedures through the paper and physical means. Aadhaar authentication is a faster and cheaper mode of identity verification.

The notification also said, "the entities shall be required to deposit the authentication transaction charges within 15 days of issuance of the concerned invoice based on the usage. The delay in payment beyond 15 days shall attract interest compounded @ 1.5% per month and discontinuation of authentication and e-KYC services."