Now, Insurance and Securities companies can use Aadhaar data under PMLA

The Finance Ministry (Department of Revenue) has now allowed 29 insurance companies and 9 stock/securities entities to undertake Aadhaar Authentication services of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Finance Secretary Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, who was formerly the CEO of UIDAI, said that the two notifications have been issued in this regard by the Ministry of Finance “to allow these entities to use Aadhaar Authentication services under Aadhaar Act with necessary standard security and privacy measures would help these entities to perform in real-time, do e-KYC and would also reduce their cost of the transaction.”

“This would also be beneficial to the customers or the investors, especially the small and retail investors, as they need not submit physical papers or documents for KYC,” Dr Ajay Bhushan added.

The ministry has allowed these insurance and securities entities to use Aadhaar authentication services under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, subject to the satisfaction of their respective regulatory authorities, namely – the Insurance Regulatory Authority of India (IRDA) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The IRDA and SEBI will determine whether they are complying with the standard of privacy and security as per the Aadhaar Act.

This means the following companies will now be able to use Aadhaar data in real-time.

Entities regulated by IRDA which can now use Aadhaar:

Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company Limited
Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company Limited
Exide Life Insurance Company Limited
HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited
India First Life Insurance Company Limited
Max Life Insurance Company Limited
PNB Metlife India Insurance Company Limited
SBI Life Insurance Company Limited
Future Generali India Life Insurance Company Limited
Reliance Nippon Life Insurance Company Limited
Aegon Life Insurance Company Limited
Shriram Life Insurance Company Limited
Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance Company Limited
Pramerica Life Insurance Limited
Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company Limited
Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company Limited
IDBI Federal Life Insurance Company Limited
Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance Company Limited
Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Company Limited
Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company Limited
Future General India Insurance Company Limited
Acko General Insurance Limited
Royal Sundaram General Insurance Company Limited
SBI General Insurance Company Limited
HDFC Ergo General Insurance Company Limited
Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company Limited
Manipal Cigna Health Insurance Company Limited
Religare Health Insurance Company Limited

Meanwhile, Entities regulated by SEBI which can now use Aadhaar:

Bombay Stock Exchange Limited
National Securities Depository Limited
Central Depository Services (India) Limited
CDSL Ventures Limited
NSDL Database Management Limited
CAMS Investor Services Private Limited
Computer Age Management Services Private Limited
Link Intime India Pvt Ltd

According to the government, this would ease their KYC process and would reduce cost and time besides preventing money laundering activities, if any.