BENGALURU: The usage of Aadhaar by banks and their customers has actually increased post the September verdict by the Supreme Court restricting usage of the identification system. In fact, usage has increased sharply on platforms such as the Aadhaar Enabled Payments Systems (AEPS) for micro-ATMs, which are primarily used in rural areas for low-value transactions and balance enquiry.Data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) shows that the value of AEPS transactions on micro-ATMs increased 18% to nearly Rs 6,000 crore in November 2018, from Rs 5,138 crore in September 2018, the month the judgement was delivered. The debit card is an alternative to such Aadhaar based transactions, but many are continuing to use the latter.Several PSU banks have said they are continuing to use Aadhaar for e-KYC and payments, subject to user consent. Only some private players like ICICI Bank have restricted usage of Aadhaar to only DBT (direct benefit transfer) accounts. Noting the two different approaches taken by banks, the Indian Bankers Association (IBA) has made representations to the finance ministry and RBI for uniform Aadhaar usage across banks for all services.The SC verdict, however, has had an impact in at least some areas. For e-KYC, many banks seem to be switching to older forms of verification. Only 60 lakh e-KYC verifications were done in November, compared to 1.2 crore verifications in October and 1.9 crore verifications in September.For balance enquiry, mobile registration, mini statement and UIDAI authentication, Indians are continuing to use Aadhaar. The numbers in November was about the same or more than in September. A sizeable number of people are also continuing to use Aadhaar status verification services, Aadhaar overdraft verification services (to enable overdraft facilities), and for seeding their bank account.One of the more questionable practises by banks was in the area of demographic authentications, and these started coming down dramatically even before the SC judgement. A demo auth is one where a bank account is linked to the Aadhaar database if the customer has given them the Aadhaar number while taking a loan or for other purposes. While the loan account would be different from the savings/current account, banks would link the savings or current account to Aadhaar using the data in their systems. "This practise was questionable as we (bankers) always have a specific purpose for each set of information we get from a customer. Now, if the customer has given us Aadhaar as proof for date of birth for a loan, we cannot use the same for linking his savings account to the UIDAI database without his express consent," said a DGM of State Bank of India, requesting that the not be named.Demo auths hit a high of 22.9 crore in September 2017, when there was deadline pressure from UIDAI that all bank accounts needed to be linked to Aadhaar (they had been given a deadline of August 31, 2017, which later got extended to December 31, 2017). However, by March 2018, demo auths were down to 3.3 crore and further to 1.5 crore by July. In November, it was only 88 lakh.IBA president V G Kannan said they are hoping the Aadhaar Bill that has been tabled in Parliament would give the banks some relief. The Bill’s proposals will enable banks to use Aadhaar for most services.