TSYS technology is playing its part in an innovative payment solution launched by Visa in India. The Saral Money program provides Indian consumers with access to financial services and electronic payments for the first time by linking Visa accounts to Indian Unique Identification Accounts.
As part of this program, TSYS’s technology is used to authenticate account holders by transporting biometric information, such as fingerprints, from the POS to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Once the account holder is authenticated using biometric information, the transaction information such as amount of the purchase and merchant type is then submitted to Visa’s network for processing.
‘Visa continues to invest in new and innovative technologies to give more financially underserved consumers in developing countries access to electronic payments,” comments Darren Parslow, global head of Processing, Visa Inc. ‘The Saral Money program and the integration of biometric authentication technology provided by TSYS, is a good example of what we can achieve by tailoring Visa’s processing solutions to the needs of governments, consumers and financial institutions.”
With approximately 70% of the total population based in rural India, much of India currently remains unbanked or under-banked, with little or no access to financial services or electronic payment options.
The roll-out of a 12 digit unique identification number, ‘Aadhaar’, initiated by the Indian Government in late 2010, is set to change this by providing a form of identification that will help facilitate easier access to financial services.
The impact of the UIDAI project is far reaching and set to have a significant positive social impact enabling, for example, financial inclusion programs, such as disbursement of government funded social benefits to Indian residents — and extended access to banking and payment services through payment scheme enabled systems.
‘TSYS is proud to support Visa and the Saral Money program in India to enable broader access to financial services for Indian consumers,” said Amit Sethi, managing director, India and Southeast Asia, TSYS. ‘This initiative is a perfect example of TSYS’s recently reaffirmed commitment to people-centered payments.”
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