Banks to make systems UID-ready in 18 months, says Nilekani

Banks will tweak their information technology systems, especially for authenticating customer identity, over the next 18 months to make them compatible with the unique identification number (UIN) regime.

The UID Authority of India, headed by Nandan Nilekani, would publish UID standards for interoperability in six months and banks would get another year to modify their systems, Indian Bank Association Chief Executive K Ramakrishna said on the sidelines of the Ficci-IBA banking summit. IBA will set up group to co-ordinate work for the project.

Nilekani, speaking at the three-day summit, said UID would enable financial institutions to reach out to unbanked areas, facilitating financial inclusion. It would also reduce the overall transaction cost for all intermediaries, he added.

“The authority will collect two sets of data — one will be the demographic profile, which will include a person's name, address and date of birth, while the other will be biometric information such as fingerprints and face,” Nilekani said.

The data would be fed into a centralised database that would be accessible to authenticate the person's identity. Once enrolled, the person will be registered for life.

The authority aims to have “a few hundred million” names in its database in four-five years. Towards this, it plans to rope in all service providers such as banks, passport offices, insurance agencies and LPG connection providers.