Mumbai: The National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) may soon allow an Aadhaar-based face authentication mechanism for high-value financial transactions, a senior UIDAI official said on Tuesday.
“UIDAI is the foundational infrastructure. It’s the only way to surely know who is who. We have the world’s largest biometric database. We advocate very strongly the use of face authentication as a modality in the multi-factor assessment,” said Abhishek Kumar Singh, Deputy Director General at UIDAI. He made these remarks during a panel discussion at the Global Fintech Fest 2025 held in Mumbai.
Singh added that the NPCI is already on board with this thought process and approach, and an announcement on the matter is expected in the coming days. He also urged other bankers to adopt this mechanism, emphasizing that it is the easiest and quickest way to authenticate oneself.
Highlighting the authentication infrastructure, Singh explained that it is tied to devices. Specialized devices are generally required to authenticate oneself through biometric processes, except when authentication is done via OTP.
According to Singh, a report from three months ago states that there are over 64 crore smartphones in India, while the total device ecosystem stands at around 4 million. He pointed out that when face authentication is considered, the smartphone itself becomes the device, thereby increasing the device ecosystem to over 640 million.
“So that’s the kind of convenience that it allows anyone to do,” Singh noted.
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