Nearly 200 crore Aadhaar authentication transactions carried out in Jan 2023

New Delhi: Aadhaar holders have carried out over 9,029.28 crore authentication transactions so far, including 199.62 crore in January 2023 alone, indicative of the growth of digital economy in the country, an official statement said.

While a majority of the authentication transaction numbers were carried out by using biometric fingerprint, it is followed by demographic and OTP authentications. In the month of January, 135.53 crore biometric fingerprint-based authentications were carried out, an indication of its usage and utility in the daily lives of residents.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has already rolled out a new security mechanism for Aadhaar-based fingerprint authentication. The artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) based security mechanism, developed in-house, is now using a combination of both finger minutiae and finger image to check the liveness of the finger print captured.

As per the Ministry of Electronics and IT, by the end of January, Aadhaar saturation among all age groups has climbed up to 94.65 per cent and the saturation level among the adult population is now near universal. During the month of January, more than 1.37 crore Aadhaars were successfully updated following requests from the residents.

Officials said that Aadhaar e-KYC service continues to play an important role for banking and non-banking financial services by providing transparent and improved customer experience, and helping in ease of doing business. More than 29.52 crore eKYC transactions were carried out during January 2023.

Total 170 entities including 105 banks are live on e-KYC. Adoption of e-KYC has also significantly reduced customer acquisition cost of entities like financial institutions, telecom service providers and others. By the end of January 2023, the cumulative number of Aadhaar e-KYC transactions so far has gone up-to 1412.25 crore.

The Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) is enabling financial inclusion for those at the bottom of the income pyramid. By the end of January 2023, cumulatively, 1,629.98 crore of last mile banking transactions have been made possible through AePS and the network of micro-ATMs.

More than 1,100 government schemes, programs and initiatives in the country run by both Centre and states have been notified to use Aadhaar. The digital ID is helping various ministries and departments in the centre and at states in improving efficiency, transparency and delivery of welfare services to the targeted beneficiaries.