The Finance Ministry (Department of Revenue) has now allowed 29 insurance companies and 9 stock/securities entities to undertake Aadhaar Authentication services of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). However, the use of the Aadhaar authentication service is voluntary. If someone gives PAN details he/she need not opt for Aadhaar authentication.
Finance Secretary Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, who was formerly the CEO of UIDAI, said that the two notifications have been issued in this regard by the Ministry of Finance "to allow these entities to use Aadhaar Authentication services under Aadhaar Act with necessary standard security and privacy measures would help these entities to perform in real-time, do e-KYC and would also reduce their cost of the transaction."
"This would also be beneficial to the customers or the investors, especially the small and retail investors, as they need not submit physical papers or documents for KYC," Dr. Ajay Bhushan added.
The ministry has allowed these insurance and securities entities to use Aadhaar authentication services under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, subject to the satisfaction of their respective regulatory authorities, namely - the Insurance Regulatory Authority of India (IRDA) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The IRDA and SEBI will determine whether they are complying with the standard of privacy and security as per the Aadhaar Act.
This means the following companies will now be able to use Aadhaar data in real-time.
Entities regulated by IRDA which can now use Aadhaar:
- Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company Limited
- Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company Limited
- Exide Life Insurance Company Limited
- HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited
- ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited
- India First Life Insurance Company Limited
- Max Life Insurance Company Limited
- PNB Metlife India Insurance Company Limited
- SBI Life Insurance Company Limited
- Future Generali India Life Insurance Company Limited
- Reliance Nippon Life Insurance Company Limited
- Aegon Life Insurance Company Limited
- Shriram Life Insurance Company Limited
- Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance Company Limited
- Pramerica Life Insurance Limited
- Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company Limited
- Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company Limited
- IDBI Federal Life Insurance Company Limited
- Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance Company Limited
- Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Company Limited
- Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company Limited
- Future General India Insurance Company Limited
- Acko General Insurance Limited
- Royal Sundaram General Insurance Company Limited
- SBI General Insurance Company Limited
- HDFC Ergo General Insurance Company Limited
- Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company Limited
- Manipal Cigna Health Insurance Company Limited
- Religare Health Insurance Company Limited
Meanwhile, Entities regulated by SEBI which can now use Aadhaar:
- Bombay Stock Exchange Limited
- National Securities Depository Limited
- Central Depository Services (India) Limited
- CDSL Ventures Limited
- NSDL Database Management Limited
- NSE Data and Analytics Limited
- CAMS Investor Services Private Limited
- Computer Age Management Services Private Limited
- Link Intime India Pvt Ltd
According to the government, this would ease their KYC process and would reduce cost and time besides preventing money laundering activities, if any.