Is it legal to get or offer eKYC as service? - UIDAI says NO !

A lot of enterprises still had this question of possibility or legality of availing eKYC as a service. We decided to get it cleared with UIDAI itself. So we filed an RTI inquiry with UIDAI, the RTI inquiry number is UIDAI/R/2015/61152.

One of the questions asked was 

Is there any entity in India allowed to offer Aadhaar e-KYC as a service?
The answer was No Entity

The core reason behind this is, no KUA's are allowed to share their KYC data with any other entity. So if any enterprise needs this, they need to go through the KUA registration process and meet all the eligibility criteria laid out by UIDAI / govt.

The full details are available here. So if any enterprise/firm approach you offering eKYC as a service be warned.

Links to original RTI request and RTI reply are here.

Feel free to contact us for any more information.
Ph: 0484 2388285 , Email: [email protected]

Can you get eKYC data without KUA registration? UIDAI says 'NO'

Many business entities want to get Aadhaar eKYC data to onboard their customers. According to UIDAI(Unique Identification Authority of India) regulations, the only way to get eKYC data is to register as a KUA (Kyc User Agency) with UIDAI. We had given this information to anyone who came to us to see how they can use Aadhaar eKYC for their business.
Still many had questions about the possibilities of sharing eKYC data with other entities or availing eKYC as a service from already existing KUA's.  We were of the opinion that this was not possible but we decided to get it cleared with UIDAI itself. So we filed an RTI inquiry with UIDAI, the RTI inquiry number is UIDAI/R/2015/61152.

How your business can make use of Aadhar E-Sign?

Can you imagine signing a service agreement or on-boarding a customer completely online in a matter of seconds without having to deal with photocopies and courier services? Aadhaar E-Sign enables any individual in India who have an Aadhaar number to digitally sign without procuring any additional software or pre-purchasing digital signature from a certifying agency. Any Aadhaar holder can sign a document in digital format using biometric or OTP authentication. The service is an easy and secure way to sign a digital document, anytime, anywhere.

A sample use case of a customer applying for a broadband connection is explained below.

1. Salesman explains the product and convinces the customer.
2. Customer/sales man fills the required fields like name, address and chooses a plan on the sales mans tablet pc
3. The auto prefilled application form is shown to the customer for reading.
4. The customer selects eSign and Aadhaar number is asked
5. After submitting the Aadhaar number, the customer's biometric fingerprint is captured using the biometric scanner attached to the tablet.
6. This data is submitted to the server for eSign along with the pdf format of application form
7. A signed pdf file is returned and a copy of the same is shared to the customer and the other copy is kept with the business house.

eSign - Digital Signature Service based on Aadhaar (How it works)

The earlier personal digital signature certificate requires a person’s identity verification and issuance of USB dongle to store the private key.  This scheme of physical verification, document-based identity validation and issuance of physical dongles does not scale to billions of people in the country. This is where eSign comes in. eSign is simple online Digital Signature Service based on Aadhaar, which can be used by any person who has an Aadhaar number.

Eligibility criteria for entities to get UIDAI Aadhaar AUA / KUA registration

UIDAI  has come out with a new set of eligibility criteria for availing Aadhaar based authentication and eKYC services. For receiving Aadhaar Authentication Service, the business house needs to become AUA (Aadhaar User Agency) and for receiving Aadhaar e-KYC Service (Know Your Customer), the business house needs to become KUA (KYC User Agency). UIDAI has organized companies into different categories and depending on the category the qualification criteria and the supporting documents to be submitted will vary. The categories are as follows:

Paperless customer on-boarding is here in India

Customer onboarding is the most crucial part of any business. The more customers you have greater the revenue you make. So how fast or how easy or how convenient a business house can make the customer onboarding process, determines how profitable that business will be. Business operating in sectors such as banking, telecom, stockbroking are required, by law, to collect supporting documents to ascertain the identity and residence of their customers. As part of the regulation, the businesses will have to collect identity proof, photo, address proof, income proof, PAN etc from the customer before they can provide the service.  Most of the time it is too much trouble for the customer to get the copy/original of all the required documents that they might drop the idea of opening the account.

Imagine onboarding a customer who is just spending his leisure time in a shopping mall. The earlier only thing the salesperson can do is, to hand over a leaflet and try talking. Even if he convinces the prospect, he can't make the prospect take an action as paperwork is too complex to do then and there. Moreover, the prospect may not be carrying any ID proof or photo or any other supporting document needed to complete the customer onboarding process.

Finahub's Paperless Customer onboarding solution address uses Aadhaar EKYC and Aadhaar eSign service addresses this problem head-on. Our customer onboarding service can make your sales team 100% more efficient. Details are below.

Do you really need a KUA registration to get the Aadhaar data?

Do you really need a KUA registration to get the Aadhaar data?

The answer is "it depends". It depends on what data you need and how you plan to use the data. If you want to do KYC, you have to register as KUA with UIDAI but if you just want to capture the data in the digital form you don't need to register as KUA.

We get a number of inquiries about the AUA/KUA registration and implementation of eKYC service. As a general practice we try to find out why they need KUA registration, is there a regulatory requirement for the firm to do a KYC for onboarding new customers.  In many cases, there is no regulatory KYC requirement and what is needed is just the name, address, and age. In such cases, there is no need for enrolling as a KUA and fetching the information from UIDAI.

How to find the right type of authenticaion device for your Aadhaar Auth or E-KYC solution?

For making use of the Aadhaar ecosystem, be it Authentication or E-KYC, business houses should enable the users of the system to authenticate and establish their identity.  This usually requires the installation of biometric devices such as fingerprint scanner or iris scanners. In this blog, we look at the various authentication methods and devices that can be used to enable Aadhaar based authentication in your application.