The disruptor will always come with breakthrough innovation. In the Indian Telecom industry which is now 23 years old [since private operators were allowed to operate] Reliance Jio Infocomm introduced a new concept of electronic consumer verification known as eKYC authenticating the consumer with the world’s largest Biometric database. Idea Cellular’s eKYC Automation process has reduced Sales, Marketing and Admin cost by a whopping 21%. Earlier telcos wanted to staff more people in the subscriber form collection and verification process in attempt to drive faster subscriber activation yet despite this subscriber activation time ranged anytime between 4 hours to 2 days. Additionally the EKYC process allows telcos to have better control on subscriber quality and align trade incentives accordingly. We expect this to
uidai-enrollment
Aadhar Card / UIDAI Biometric Card Enrollment in India Touches 500Mn
The enrollment in the ambitious Indian Government’s Unique Identity Authority of India – UIDAI a.k.a Aadhar Card has touched 490Mn [little short of 500 Mn / 50 Cr] and is all set to reach the 600m targeted by Mar’14. As we have highlighted before, UID aims to lower fraud risks and its applications such as DBT help reduce government expenditure leakages; far outweighing its US$3bn cost.
The benefits of giving every Indian a unique identity (UID) through the biometrics based UID number which is almost impossible to duplicate. The US$3-3.5bn project has already seen 488m enrollments. The number is rising by about 25m/month with rising acceptance of the same across India. Multiple efficiency improving applications can be built on UID. Direct benefit transfer (DBT) is one of the most