Airtel Payments Bank, the fintech arm of Bharti Airtel, on Tuesday said it has rolled out face authentication for Aadhar-enabled Payment System (AePS) at 500,000 banking points in collaboration with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Airtel Payments Bank is among the four banks that offer face authentication for AePS, it said.
Until now, transactions were being authenticated using the customer’s Aadhaar number and fingerprint or Iris match in the UIDAI records. The new facility will enable customers to validate transactions by undertaking face authentication, along with the Aadhaar number, the company said in a release.
“Face authentication is an important addition to our existing bouquet of secure and simple banking solutions to drive financial and digital inclusion,” said Ganesh Ananthanarayanan, chief operating officer at Airtel Payments Bank.
“We commend UIDAI for introducing face authentication as an additional mode for Aadhaar-based authentication. It’s delightful to see Airtel Payment Bank implementing this feature for AePS transactions, which will enhance the reach of Aadhaar-based transactions,” said Praveena Rai, chief operating officer at NPCI.
Currently, the face authentication feature is available for non-financial transactions such as balance inquiry and mini-statements. The bank will soon make it available for financial transactions for customers of other banks as well, Airtel Payments Bank said.
Customers can avail of the facility at banking points of Airtel Payments Bank, where banking correspondents will help them to carry out the transactions.
Airtel Payments Bank has also partnered with the NPCI for testing digital payments through feature phones. The company is also testing interactive voice response (IVR), among other use cases, with the NPCI for digital payments in tier-II and tier-III cities.