Spice Money launches Aadhaar-enabled payment system

Spice Money, the domestic remittance service from Spice Digital, is now processing payments through the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), according to a report by Medianama.

The move follows Spice Digital’s announcement in October that it has been authorized by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to offer AEPS services.

The AEPS allows digital payments using the national Aadhaar number and biometric authentication. Users can perform financial transactions on a micro-ATM provided by a bank.

At the time, Spice Digital said it would deploy Aadhaar-enabled mini ATMs at Spice Money retail counters.

Spice Digital also offers a wallet licence from the Reserve Bank of India and launched a service in September 2015 called Spice Mudra, which offers domestic remittances.

The company’s 3,000 retail outlets will help with the remittances using the wallet. Spice Digital also plans to expand to other services including bill payments, mobile recharges and ticket booking.

Saket Agarwal, CEO of Spice Connect, said the company was seeing an average ticket size of Rs 3,500 (US$51.42) per person and remittances of Rs 1 crore (US$146,907) in a day.

In addition to Spice Money offering AEPS services, payments company Oxigen has also been authorized by the NPCI to process payments through the AEPS.

Oxigen has been commissioned by the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to install 5,000 micro ATMs across fuel stations on highways close to rural areas, which will allow withdrawals, cash deposits, balance enquiries and money transfers to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.

Launched in November, Oxigen said the micro ATMs have been deployed at over 1,000 rural locations including in the provinces of Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  India  |  Oxigen