NUCFDC and UIDAI briefed lenders on using Aadhaar authentication for customer onboarding and due diligence, as efforts to extend digital identity services across India’s cooperative banking sector gather pace.
The National Urban Cooperative Finance and Development Corporation and the Unique Identification Authority of India have stepped up their effort to push Aadhaar-enabled digital banking deeper into India’s cooperative sector, holding a workshop in Hyderabad for around 50 urban cooperative banks from the region.
Organised with support from the Telangana Urban Cooperative Banks Federation, the session focused on how Aadhaar authentication can be used during customer onboarding and ongoing customer due diligence, two areas that have become increasingly important as banks look to improve both compliance and the speed of account opening. According to the workshop summary published by eGov, participants were also briefed on authentication tokens, which are designed to help banks handle authentication responses more efficiently and support smoother internal processes.
The event fits into a wider policy push to bring cooperative banks into the country’s digital identity infrastructure. The National e-Governance Division said UIDAI has developed a broader authentication framework with the Ministry of Cooperation, NABARD, NPCI and cooperative banks to help expand Aadhaar-based services across the sector. That framework is aimed at simplifying adoption, strengthening last-mile banking and supporting digital inclusion, although the official description mainly refers to state cooperative banks and district central cooperative banks rather than urban lenders.
UIDAI’s own guidance says Aadhaar authentication works by comparing submitted demographic or biometric details with the central identities database, and can be carried out through methods including biometrics and one-time passwords. Reserve Bank of India rules on customer identification and due diligence also allow for Aadhaar-based electronic KYC under defined conditions, giving regulatory context to the Hyderabad discussion. NUCFDC, which has been positioned by the Ministry of Cooperation as a national umbrella body for modernising urban cooperative banks, is using such programmes to encourage the adoption of shared technology and improve customer service.
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