PhonePe Is First Company To Offer UPI Activation With Aadhaar

On Wednesday, leading finance platform PhonePe revealed that it had made it possible to activate UPI using OTP authentication based on Aadhaar.

According to a statement from the company, PhonePe is the first UPI Third Party Application Provider (TPAP) App to launch the Aadhaar-based UPI onboarding procedure, allowing several crore Indians to join the UPI ecosystem for the first time in an easy and secure manner.

A valid debit card was necessary under the former UPI onboarding flow in order to set up a user's UPI PIN during the UPI registration process, which severely limited access for many Indian bank account users who didn't have access to a debit card.

This barrier will be lifted with the integration of Aadhaar onboarding for UPI, allowing populations that were previously unreached to enjoy the convenience and advantages of digital payments.

"We are excited to be the first fintech platform to offer Aadhaar-based authentication for our users, making the UPI onboarding flows even more simple and inclusive. We believe this is a very progressive move by RBI, NPCI and UIDAI and is a great example of the digital financial inclusion that UIDAI's Aadhaar program has been able to drive,"  said PhonePe's Head of Payments, Deep Agrawal.

The Aadhaar e-KYC flow will now be incorporated into the PhonePe App's UPI onboarding process.

To finish the authentication procedure, they will then receive an OTP from UIDAI and their respective bank. Customers will then be able to use the PhonePe App to access all UPI services, including payments and balance checks.

"This will help expand the overall UPI ecosystem, and also onboard new customers to the digital payments fold. UPI has become a global exemplar, and countries across the world are looking to implement it. Going forward, we are closely working with NPCI to take UPI international,"  said Agrawal.