APBS AADHAAR PAYMENT BRIDGE SYSTEM

Aadhaar Payment Bridge System

APBS is a gateway created by National Payments Corporation of India to enable departments and agencies administering government schemes to transfer funds to Aadhaar-enabled bank accounts of beneficiaries.

It acts on the principle that a person’s Aadhaar number becomes their financial address.

Instead of providing multiple account details to receive a bank transfer, one only has to provide their Aadhaar number which significantly eases out the entire process.

Induction of a bank account into APBS involves two distinct steps, both of which are meant to be based on informed consent. First, the account must be linked or ‘Seeded’ with the customer’s Aadhaar number.

Second, it must be connected to the NPCI mapper, which serves as a repository of Aadhaar numbers linked with particular bank and used for the purpose of routing the Aadhaar based payment transactions to the destination banks. This step is known as “mapping”.

In cases of multiple accounts for the same person, the APBS automatically sends money to the latest-mapped account.

Benefits of APBS

It sub-serves the goal of financial inclusion and provides an opportunity to the government to attempt financial re-engineering of its subsidy management program.

The implementation of ABP System has also led to electronification of a large number of retail payment transaction which were predominantly either in cash or cheque.

It eliminates inordinate delays, multiple channels & paper-work involved in the existing system making the process less cumbersome and eco-friendly and transfers benefits & subsidies in a seamless & timely manner and directly into the Aadhaar Enabled Bank Account.