AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 5219 - Payments banks will need to build transactions-based models: Nachiket Mor

In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.

On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.

In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.

In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.

In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.

"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi

Ram Krishnaswamy

Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Thursday, February 27, 2014

5219 - Payments banks will need to build transactions-based models: Nachiket Mor

Payments banks will need to build transactions-based models: Nachiket Mor

An RBI panel led by Mor has recommended a clutch of measures for financial inclusion in the country

Dinesh Unnikrishnan

Mor says the 2016 goal for universal electronic bank accounts is not based on business as usual and so it is not surprising that there has been debate on the timeline. Photo: SaiSen/Mint

Mumbai: A Reserve Bank of India (RBI) panel led by Nachiket Mor, who sits on the board of the central bank, has recommended a clutch of measures to make financial services accessible to the large number of unbanked people in the country. The suggestions, released by RBI on 7 January, include starting dedicated lenders for poor households and small businesses called payments banks, opening electronic bank accounts for everyone by January 2016 and increasing the mandatory lending by banks to economically weaker sections. Not surprisingly, some of the proposals have been questioned by commercial banks, which say these are neither practical nor sustainable. In an email interview, Mor justified the panel’s recommendations. Edited excerpts:

Banks feel that their priority sector lending (PSL) obligations will shoot up going by the model suggested by your panel.

The committee has not recommended an increase in the PSL target. It has recommended that PSL guidelines should enable more specialization vis-à-vis sectors and regions. A system of weightages has been proposed so that there is an added incentive to lend to certain sectors and regions. The adjusted PSL mechanism, by assigning relative weights, gives leeway to the bank to specialize, while at the same time making it more likely for credit to flow to those sectors and regions that have more pronounced shortfalls in supply of formal credit. Banks currently achieving their 40% PSL target would be in a good position to also meet the adjusted PSL target of 50%.

The panel has mooted a legally protected right to the customer to be offered only suitable financial services. How do banks assess the suitability aspect for every customer?

Banks are already assessing borrowers based on their internal processes for products such as home loans and credit cards. While for some segments of customers there is a lot of verifiable data that is available, for others, primary due diligence will have to be done by the bank. Our recommendation is that all RBI-regulated financial institutions follow a board-approved process in this regard, that will then need to be followed for every product that is offered by the bank. This will ensure that the provider fully understands the products that they are offering, and that it can demonstrate that it has followed the process which establishes suitability of sale.

Isn’t the 2016 target of bank accounts for all a little too ambitious?

The 2016 goal for the UEBA (universal electronic bank account) is not based on business as usual and so it is not surprising that there has been debate on the timeline. It assumes a significant acceleration of the pace of account opening, based on the Aadhaar issuance process, which in any case establishes the KYC (know your customer) details required for account opening. There are already 56 crore Aadhaar (identity) numbers issued. UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) expects that enrolment of the entire eligible population will be completed by December 2015. Our recommendation is that the UEBA be opened automatically at the time of successful Aadhaar enrolment by the UIDAI for an enrolled individual desirous of obtaining a bank account.

Are payments banks a sustainable business model?

There are 26 licensed prepaid instrument providers today who have a viable business model based on leveraging existing distribution networks. So, there is no reason why a payments bank cannot be viable. Rather than rely on a traditional credit spread-based business model, payments banks will need to build transactions-based business models, something that mobile companies and retailers understand very well.