Banks back PIN-based authentication even as NDA regime pushes for biometric verification

MUMBAI: Can the poor, illiterate, unbanked masses, unfamiliar with technology and multiple

passwords, remember and key in the 4-digit PIN to withdraw money from ATMs and use the debit card that the Modi government wants banks to offer? Isn't it simpler for a customer to give her fingerprint on a biometric reader that's linked to the Aadhaar database, to prove that she is, indeed, the person she claims to be? Not really, say many bankers.

Dirt and grime on fingers of labourers and farm workers may often block biometric recognition; even when fingerprints are recorded, transmitting the images will require more bandwidth and time; besides, if folks in remote, impoverished African villages can remember the PIN, why can't those in rural India, they counter — arguing 'why reinvent the wheel' and complicate a transaction when chip & PIN, a globally accepted technology, is already in place.

(the economic times)