News

India: MasterCard, UIDAI cooperate to launch Aadhaar-based payment program

Tuesday 7 December 2010 08:34 CET | News

MasterCard has signed a cooperative agreement with UIDAI (The Unique Identification Authority of India), for the development of a payment application for ‘Aadhaar’, a 12-digit Unique Identification Number (UID) that captures the basic demographic and biometric information of Indian residents.

With the new application, Aadhaar holders will be able to perform various payment transactions using their UID numbers with biometric authentication. The service has been designed to support prepaid, debit as well as credit payment products.

Banks participating in the program will be able to issue a 16 digit Primary Account Number (PAN) to individuals enrolled into the ‘Aadhaar’ program. As part of the agreement, all payment transactions will be performed using the UIDAI authentication infrastructure and MasterCard’s authorization, clearing and settlement infrastructure. In support of the initiative, MasterCard has already developed a direct interface with UIDAI to perform UID biometric authentication of such payment transactions.

Most recently, US-based retail foreign exchange services provider Travelex has rolled out a prepaid foreign currency card that incorporates EMV functionalities in collaboration with MasterCard and the US financial services provider West Suburban Bank.
 


Free Headlines in your E-mail

Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.

Subscribe now

Keywords: MasterCard, UIDAI, biometric information, Aadhaar, payment cards
Categories: Payments & Commerce
Companies:
Countries: World
This article is part of category

Payments & Commerce






Industry Events