UPI Activation Through Aadhaar From March 15: Know How It’ll Work If Banks Follow Deadline

Bank customers who do not have a debit card but have an Aadhaar card instead may be able to activate the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) service from today, March 15. However, it’s not clear if the facility has kicked off as some media reports indicated that banks may not be ready to launch this service yet.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) had first announced in September 2021 that bank customers will be able to activate UPI using their Aadhaar card.

In the past, banks and other stakeholders have delayed the implementation of UPI activation through Aadhaar several times. It was first supposed to happen by December 15, 2021, and the deadline was then extended to March 15, 2022.

Activating UPI Through Debit Cards

If you wish to use UPI for transferring funds, you need to ensure you’re your KYC (know your customer) is complete, and you have a valid debit card.

Without a valid debit card tied up to your bank account, you cannot proceed with a UPI registration. The entire process takes less than two minutes if you have your debit card nearby. 

Also, you will need to use the mobile number linked with your bank account to get this done. At the time of registration, the SIM of the same number needs to be in the device. In case you remove your SIM card, then the UPI registration will be cancelled. You will then have to re-insert the SIM card and re-verify your details with the respective UPI application.

Once registered, you can change devices but then you will need to re-verify using SMS verification (which is not OTP based). However, you will need to continue using the same number.

Activating UPI Through Aadhaar Card

The new verification mechanism eliminates the need for a debit card altogether. It will simply fetch your data from UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) after you give your Aadhaar number at the time of registration.

Then it will send an OTP to your Aadhaar-registered number, which has to be the same as the number registered with your bank account. After successful verification, you can create your VPA (Virtual Payment Address) and start transacting using UPI. So, people who do not have debit cards and do not wish to own one too can easily transact using UPI with this new Aadhaar-OTP registration feature of UPI.

As before, the number which is to be registered for UPI needs to be the same. If you change the device, you just need to re-verify.