Now Open Atal Pension Yojana Account Online Through Aadhaar e-KYC: Here’s How

Subscribers were enrolled in the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) by physical, net banking, or other digital methods given by the respective APY-SPs (APY Service Providers) until now. However, on October 27, 2021, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) announced the facility to enroll for APY online using Aadhaar e KYC. CRA (Central Recordkeeping Agency) will now provide online onboarding based on Aadhaar eKYC as an additional option in order to expand the accessibility and streamline the enrollment procedure.

Subscribers have already been given access to Aadhaar XML-based onboarding and these procedures do not need any documents. According to a statement by PFRDA "The information fetched from the prospective subscribers through e KYC technology framework viz Aadhaar details, demographic information, pension amount, mode of payment, spouse/nominee name and bank account information, etc. shall be shared with the respective banks where the subscribers' savings bank account is maintained through online information exchange for setting up of auto-debit for the specified amount/mode based on the guaranteed pension amount opted by the subscriber. Post opening of APY Account, the subsequent servicing of the Subscribers would be offered by the respective APY-SP."

All the APY accounts are to be seeded with Aadhaar number for which the CRA will be providing functionality for facilitating the Aadhaar seeding of the existing APY subscribers through the proper consent mechanism. Additionally, APY-SPs can also collect the Aadhaar details from their associated subscribers with due consent which would then be shared with CRA for seeding. CRA is advised to engage with all APY-SPs for system level integration so as to provide the functionality viz e KYC based APY on-boarding and consent framework for Aadhaar seeding at the earliest, the regulator claimed.

With effect from June 1, 2015, the Indian government established the Atal Pension Yojana (APY). The PFRDA administers the scheme under its administrative and institutional architecture of the NPS, and all existing subscribers of NPS/EPF or any other Pension/Social Security scheme can also subscribe to Atal Pension Yojana if he or she is within the age group of 18 to 40 years, for availing a guaranteed pension amount of Rs 5000 by the Government of India under APY.