Indian PM launches BHIM Aadhaar digital payments platform for merchants

In an event in Nagpur, Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, launched BHIM Aadhaar platform for merchants to further the digital payments revolution in India.

BHIM Aadhaar is the merchant interface of the BHIM app that was launched in December last year to enable fast and secure cashless payments through one’s smartphone. In four months since launch, the app has already garnered over 19 million downloads, buoyed by the currency crunch in the country in wake of demonetization drive.

Tied with the country’s unique identification initiative, BHIM Aadhaar will allow customers to pay digitally using their biometric data like their thumb imprint on a merchants’ biometric enabled device which could be smartphone having a biometric reader.

While this will allow any user without access to smartphones or debit or credit cards to transact digitally, there are obvious concerns of using one’s thumb impression on a device at a random store as well as lack of trust around Aadhaar data security.

The Prime Minister also launched two new incentive schemes for BHIM – Cashback and Referral bonus – to permeate the culture of digital payments down to the grassroots.