The fallout from consent being violated by the eKYC process by Airtel continues. The government ordered the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to stop the override feature of the Aadhaar Payment Bridge (APB) mapper to send direct benefit transfer (DBT) subsidy to bank accounts till it fixes issues in the mapper. The fixes to the mapper were issued in a gazette notification.

Under the current system, the APB sent the subsidies to the last bank account seeded with the Aadhaar. The UIDAI suspended the eKYC licence following the numerous reports from users that Airtel was opening bank accounts without the explicit consent of users using the Aadhaar data when they came to re-verify themselves. Through this, Airtel Payments Bank accounts were being linked to receive LPG subsidy.

Airtel Payments Bank had the highest number of deposits with Rs 224.03 crore growing 26% from Rs 177.05 crore in August. Reportedly, more than 23 lakh customers have reportedly received about Rs 47 crore in their Airtel bank accounts, which they did not know had been opened.

What are the fixes now?

The UIDAI said that the NPCI will allow over ride request to an Aadhaar holder only if it is accompanied by the name of their current bank on the APB mapper and confirmation from the requesting bank that it has obtained the requisite consent of the Aadhaar holder for switching to the requesting bank on the mapper.

Banks will have to inform account holders through SMS and email within 24 hours that a request has been sent to the NPCI to put their account on the mapper. Following which, they can change the bank account on the NPCI mapper.

“In case he does not want to put his new bank account on the mapper, then the customer should be provided a methodology to reverse this mapping,” the UIDAI said.

The records of consents obtained, the communications made to bank customers, and

a scanned copy of the consent form shall be retained for seven years by the banks as per the UIDAI Regulations.