Airtel Payments Banks rolls-out e-KYC based on Face Authentication

Bhubaneswar: Airtel Payments Bank has taken yet another step towards digital inclusion and announced the launch of Face Authentication-based savings bank account opening for customers. The facility will further ease the account opening process making it seamless & convenient for customers. Airtel Payments Bank is the first Payments Bank in the country to offer this facility.

The new facility will help Business Correspondents (BCs) of the bank to open an account just by undertaking face authentication e-KYC. The authentication is processed using a newly developed mobile application by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) as a result, the business correspondent will now only need a smartphone to open an account. The bank will make this facility available across all its 500,000 banking points by end of this year.

Speaking about the launch, Anubrata Biswas, MD & CEO of Airtel Payments Bank said, “We at Airtel Payments Bank believe in strengthening our bouquet of digital services with the latest technology and provide our customers access to improved digital banking solutions which are user-friendly. This safe and secure authentication process has been made possible by the efforts of the UIDAI, which is a huge step in furthering the cause of inclusive banking in the country.”

“This KYC facility uses AI/ML based Face Authentication RD Application, which helps in the prevention of fraudulent activities by cross-checking individual’s photo with the image captured in Aadhaar and allows secure customer onboarding,”added Anubrata Biswas.

Till now, if a customer wished to open an account with Airtel Payments Bank, the Aadhaar based OTP or fingerprint biometric authentication was carried out. This is Airtel Payments Bank’s one more initiative after it recently integrated with the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) – National Financial Switch (NFS) to facilitate Micro ATM transactions for debit card users residing beyond the metro and tier 1 cities in India.