To expand its subscriber base and simplify the on-boarding process further, pension fund regulator PFRDA has now allowed Aadhaar eKYC as an additional option to add customers under its flagship pension scheme Atal Pension Yojana.
The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) is allowing enrollment of subscribers through physical, net banking and other digital modes, at present.
"Now in order to further increase the outreach and simplify the process of subscription, CRA (Central Recordkeeping agency) would be providing digital on-boarding based through Aadhaar eKYC as an additional option. These processes are paperless," the PFRDA said in a notification.
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Post opening of an APY account, the subsequent servicing of the subscribers would be offered by the respective APY-SP (Atal Pension Yojana-Service Provider).
Besides, the PFRDA said there will be Aadhaar seeding of all the APY accounts. For this, the CRA will be providing a functionality for facilitating the Aadhaar seeding of the existing APY subscribers through the proper consent mechanism.
However, APY-SPs can also collect the Aadhaar details from subscribers after taking their consent which would then be shared with CRA for seeding.
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"All APY-SP banks are encouraged to provide e-APY link in their respective corporate website for the benefit of their customers and facilitate them with ease of on-boarding.
"CRA is advised to engage with all APY-SPs for system level integration so as to provide the functionality e-KYC based APY on-boarding and consent framework for Aadhaar seeding at the earliest," the PFRDA said.
The government introduced Atal Pension Yojana (APY) on June 1, 2015, to provide social security to workers mainly in the unorganised sector. It aims to create a Universal Social Security system for all Indians, especially the under-privileged and workers with limited means.
The PFRDA is the administrator of APY under its administrative and institutional architecture of the NPS (National Pension System). Usage of Aadhaar as identity document, for delivery of services or benefits under APY simplifies government's delivery processes in a transparent and efficient manner.
The numbers of subscribers under APY stood at 304.51 lakh as of August 31, 2021, the PFRDA data showed.