People living in areas without banks or ATMs will no longer have to walk long distances to avail such services.
The Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) will come in handy for such residents in rural areas, especially for those in the hilly terrains.
To demonstrate the various benefits of AePS services to the general public, a special awareness drive was organised at the Vellore Head Post Office on Thursday.
Superintendent of post offices, Vellore division, P. Komalkumar, said, “AePS is a bank-led model which allows basic interoperable banking transactions at Points of Sale (PoS) (Micro ATM), through post offices, that will work as business correspondents of the India Posts Payments Bank, at no extra cost to the customer.” The services have been extended to all post offices in Vellore district, he said.
The benefits
The AePS payment method allows Aadhaar cardholders to make financial transactions through Aadhaar-based authentication.
The system facilitates disbursement of government entitlements, social security pensions and old age pension, among others, of State and Central government bodies, using Aadhaar authentication, as supported by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). AePS allows a bank customer to use Aadhaar as a verification of identity to access respective Aadhaar-enabled bank accounts and perform basic banking transactions like cash withdrawal, inter-bank fund transfer and balance enquiry. Cash deposit facilities will be linked with AePS soon.
Using AePS
To put the AePS system to use, a customer must first get to a post office or find a postman with an electronic device.
The customer can then provide his Aadhaar number, choose the type of transaction and provide verification through fingerprint. The customer must then confirm his transaction and collect payment. The receipt for the transaction will be sent to the registered mobile number through SMS.
Based on the demographic and biometric information of an individual, the system eliminates the threat of fraudulent and non-genuine activities.
