SMS alerts panic customers, but banks play it down

Within hours of the Centre announcing that linking of Aadhaar card to bank accounts, mobile numbers, etc was mandatory, several customers got messages from banks demanding the immediate linkage of Aadhaar to their respective accounts.

Some communication carried warnings that failure to comply could even result in freezing accounts. Messages were sent by various financial institutions and even gas agencies with the same demand. This triggered panic among customers, who were trying to make sense of the messages to avoid harassment.

A customer of a nationalised bank said notifications have apparently been sent out to 1,500 customers with a threat to freeze accounts. However, City Union Bank’s MD-CEO V Kamakodi reassured that some of these messages are KYC-related and should not be seen as threats. “Customers are profiled in low, medium and high-risk categories. Depending on the risk profile, the alerts are sent periodically for updation of records either in one, two or five years. Also, these are ways of verifying the credentials at frequent intervals to avoid frauds or resolving disputes,” he emphasised.