22 finance cos can do Aadhar verification

NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry has allowed 22 financial companies, including Amazon Pay (India) and Hero FinCorp, to undertake Aadhaar-based authentication of clients.

The ministry, through a notification, said these 22 companies, which are already reporting entities under the PMLA, will be able to verify the identity of clients and beneficial owners’ details using their Aadhaar numbers.

These 22 financial companies include Godrej Finance, Amazon Pay (India) Pvt Ltd, Aditya Birla Housing Finance, Tata Motors Finance Solution, IIFL Finance and Mahindra Rural Housing Finance Ltd.

Nangia Andersen LLP Partner Sandeep Jhunjhunwala said that while Aadhaar authentication of clients is made available as one of the modes of verification for banking companies, the PMLA provides that Aadhaar authentication can also be adopted by reporting entities other than banking companies as may be notified by the central government.