Hyderabad: More than 50 per cent of bank account holders in the state will have their banking transactions blocked after December 31 as the Union finance ministry has identified conflicts between information submitted in Know Your Customer (KYC) and Aadhaar cards.
While bankers in the state claim that 75 per cent of Aadhaar seeding has been completed, the Union finance ministry said only 15 per cent were valid; the others show discrepancies in the account holders' information like name and surname.
The name and surname is often differently spelt in the Aadhaar card and bank account. If there is even a small change such as a full stop in the initials, the computer will reject the linkage. Most such rejections have occurred in rural areas.
Customers may have opened bank accounts one or two decades ago by submitting ration cards as residential and identity proof. Majority of rural people used their real names like Narsaiah, Kistaiah and Lakshmaiah etc on the bank account and when they applied for Aadhaar, they could have written the name as Narasimha, Krishna and or Lakshminarayana.
Officials say that in such cases there are only two options either change the name in the Aadhaar before seeding with banks, or close the bank account and open a new one with data as per the Aadhaar.
To pre-empt accusations of leaking data, the Unique Identification Authority of India has assured the Supreme Court that it will not reveal Aadhaar data to anyone. This too is a problem for banks that have to verify the Aadhaar details to link with bank accounts.
When banks ask for authentication of the Aadhaar, UIDAI will only say whether it is correct or wrong, but will not reveal the details of Aadhaar data and why it is wrong.
In some cases the Aadhaar card holder has given one mobile number and later changed it. If the Aadhaar card holder asks UIDAI for the password of his Aadhaar, the password will be sent via SMS to the mobile number given at the time of registration, but which is not now the card holder's number.
Many people have multiple bank accounts and they can link the Aadhaar number with only one account; for other accounts they need to mention it in the KYC norms and get it authenticated. Once a bank account is linked with the Aadhaar number, it will be known to other banks during verification of Aadhaar data for other accounts of the account holder.
Seeding of Aadhaar numbers with accounts without authenticating the data has become a major hurdle to complete the process within the deadline of December 31, 2017.
The banks have told the Centre that 68 per cent of accounts have been linked with Aadhaar numbers across the country. In Telangana state, banks said about 75 per cent of accounts have been linked with Aadhaar.
The review meeting conducted by the Department of Financial Services of the Union finance ministry, has revealed interesting facts. According to the DFS, only 13 per cent of accounts have been successfully linked with Aadhaar numbers against the claim of 68 per cent across the country.
In Telangana state, 15 per cent and in AP 14 per cent of accounts have been actually lin-ked with Aadhaar numbers against the claim of 75 per cent in TS and 80 per cent in AP banks.
General Secretary of Bank Employees Federation M.S. Kumar said modifications in names could be done in 10 per cent of cases. “About 50 per cent of accounts are having differences in names of account holders,” he said.
