FreeCharge Wallet To Leverage The Power Of Aadhaar For KYC

FreeCharge, the digital wallet company owned by Snapdeal, has announced that it’ll adopt Aadhaar as the primary Know Your Customer (KYC) tool for opening and upgrading wallets on their platform.

Consumers who register for a FreeCharge wallet with their Aadhaar authentication can have their balance limit enhanced from $154 (INR 10K) to $1532 (INR 1 Lakh). There will also be no monetary limit on transactions which makes the wallet more flexible and versatile.

FreeChrage has reached the million wallets mark within a week of being launched. The new adoption will make it more convenient for mass adoption and ubiquitous usage, the company said.

“For consumers, convenience and speed of transaction are key considerations. We will leverage Aadhaar ID authetication, for paperless, secure KYC, to be completed in a few minutes. We are innovating to bring new models of go to market – for instance doorstep authentication – where customers can request for an agent to come to their home for a doorstep biometric authentication,” said Govind Rajan, Chief Operating Officer, FreeCharge and Chief Strategy Officer, Snapdeal in a statement.

There are multiple ways for a consumer to link their FreeCharge wallet to their Aadhaar number. These services include, doorstep service available on demand. Consumers can also authenticate by walking into any of the 30,000 banking correspondent points of FreeCharge partner YES bank, or they can simply walk into any branch of YES bank.

The company plans to extend the service by partnering with FINO, the payments bank licensee and a strategic partner of FreeCharge, in the future.

FreeCharge will also leverage Snapdeal’s extensive delivery reach to scale the doorstep KYC model and is in the process of launching the pilot in metros. It’s planning to scale this nationwide thereafter.

FreeCharge wallet aims to become a robust and flexible platform that leverages enabling technologies such as Host Card Emulation (HCE), Near Field Communication (NFC), Quick Response (QR) code and Blouetooth Low Energy (BLE) to create a seamless and intuitive consumer experience.

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