The government has been working on an ‘Aadhaar Payment App‘ to do away with plastic card and point of sales machines (POS) that seem to have done little in times of demonetization.

According to a report from the Economic Times, the new app launched on 25(Today) December keeping in mind a faster adoption of a cashless society and to eradicate fee payments charged by card companies, making it an affordable digital payment solution for merchants in rural areas.

The app, also eliminate the fee payments for service providers like card companies such as Mastercard or Visa, which has been a stumbling block in merchants switching to digital payments making it affordable to even merchants in remote villages, said people familiar with the development.All that it needs is an Android phone with the merchant.

How Aadhar Payment App will Work?

Merchants would be required to download the Aadhar Pay payment app on their android smartphone connected to a biometric reader.

The biometric reader is currently available for just Rs. 2000. If a customer wants to make payment, then he/she just need to enter his Aadhar Number in the app and select the bank from which the payment is to be made and use the biometric scan as the password for the transaction.

Upon entering the Aadhar Number, the app would automatically fetch the bank accounts linked with your Aadhar number, then the customer can make the selection of bank for payment as per his/her choice.

Customers would not require any app or password to pay to merchants against any purchase. However, the bank account holders whose Aadhar number is linked with their bank account would be eligible to make payments through Aadhar Pay Payment app.

According to Unique Identification Authority of India, almost 40 Crore Aadhar numbers already stands linked with the bank accounts while the rest are targeted to be linked by March 2017.

Aadhar Pay – Aadhar Payment App

Aadhar Pay payment app has been developed by the IDFC Bank along with UIDAI and National Payments Corporation of India. The app has been developed to tap a wider set of people. The bank account holders with Aadhar Seeded does not require to have any debit or credit card or even a mobile phone.

How to use Aadhar Pay App

Merchants would just need to download the Aadhar app and connect their smartphones to the biometric scan machine to accept the payments from customers. The merchants would also be required to connect their bank accounts and register themselves on the app.

Download Aadhar Pay – Aadhar Payment App

The Aadhar Pay payment app can be downloaded from the Google Play store after it is launched by the central government. The link to download the app would be available after the launch of Aadhar app.

The Aadhar Pay payment app can be downloaded from the Google Play store after it is launched by the central government. The link to download the app would be available after the launch of Aadhar app.

Steps to Download Aadhar Payment App

1. Visit Google Play Store at play.google.com from desktop or open the Play Store App on your android smartphone.
2. In the search box on the top, search for “Aadhar Payment App”, (Exact links will be updated here after the app is launched)
3. Select the “Aadhar Pay” payment app from the list after searching and hit the “Download” button.
4. The app may ask for some permissions, allow it and follow the instructions on screen to download it.
5. Once the app is downloaded, it will be installed on your smartphone.

After downloading and installing the app, you can connect it with the biometric scan machine and start accepting payments from customers.

Why Aadhar Payment App

The Aadhar Pay App for merchants would help eliminate the long waiting period and hassle of getting a new POS (Point of Sale) machine. At present there are only 15 lakh POS machines deployed by the banks across the country. SBO alone has deployed over 3 lakh terminals followed by HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank.

The acceptability of digital payments has also been very poor among the merchants in the country. One of the biggest reasons behind this is India being a cash dominated country and 2%-3% charges taken by the card companies such as Visa and MasterCard.

The lack of connectivity has also made it difficult for the merchants in the country to adopt digital payment systems. There are about 5 Crore merchants in the country at present and only 15 lakh POS machines for a population of more than 125 crore.

Not only for the merchants, the Aadhar Payment would also be helpful for customers to get rid of their stacks of plastic money, confusing sets of passwords and their digital payment accounts passwords being stolen. Also, the customers need not to download a digital payment wallet or even a smartphone.

The consumer app is also one of the parts of Aadhar Pay app to make quick digital payment.