A core group of ministers, which has been tasked by the Prime Minister’s Office to promote cashless transactions, on Wednesday discussed the use of Aadhaar for such transactions.

The ministers included Minister of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Law & Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad; HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar; and Minister of State for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines Piyush Goyal. The group felt that Point-of-Sale (PoS) machines should also be Aadhaar enabled.

Government sources told BusinessLine that the Ministers were of the opinion that Aadhaar will play an important role and also reduce the transaction time.

“Apart from making PoS Aadhaar-enabled (which many are already), Piyush Goyal was also of the opinion that Internet banking should also be Aadhaar enabled to formalise the cashless transactions all over the country,” a senior government official said.

The Ministers also discussed the need for public sector banks to make a concerted push towards digitalisation to compete with private banks. Private banks have been more proactive in popularising mobile wallets among their customers.

They have to come out of the PSU mode and think like private players – whether it comes to handling customers or working extra time – to give best services, was the opinion among the Ministers, said the official privy to the meeting adding that the GoMs will arrive at their decisions after discussions with officials.

GoM meetings

The GoMs have been meeting often over the last one week. According to another government official, Prasad had told his officials that, under the current circumstances, the time is ripe for Common Service Centres (under the MeitY) to promote cashless transactions because of their reach in rural and backward areas.

“He has directed all his officials to involve CSCs and make them operational and educate people on a war footing mode so that the centres can be utilised at maximum level,” said an official.

But experts say enabling Aadhaar for Internet banking, especially for personal banking, may lead to disagreements amonglenders and consumers.

“This may mean consumers have to buy a biometric device (whether it’s a smartphone or external device for personal computer) so that they can use their biometrics for authentication even while making transactions from home,” said an analyst requesting anonymity.

However, he also said that one has to wait and watch on what the government decides to do, as authenticity also has to be taken care as phishing and cyber crimes are also in the rise.

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