DigiLocker is a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and IT under the Digital India programme.
Documents issued in the DigiLocker system are treated at par with the original physical documents
Even though digitization is happening rapidly around the world, especially in India, post the pandemic, DigiLocker is an important platform to play a role in it. Experts said DigiLocker will help businesses securely store and share documents online with authorities, regulators, banks or other business entities.
DigiLocker, a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) under the Digital India The program aims at ‘Digital Empowerment’ of the citizen by providing access to authentic digital documents to the digital document wallet of the citizen. Documents issued in the DigiLocker system are treated at par with the original physical documents.
Ashwin Chawla, CEO and Founder, Escrope, said, “DigiLocker has so far onboarded over 146 million people on the platform and issued over 5.6 billion documents. DigiLocker aims to empower citizens with digital freedom by providing access to authentic digital documents DigiLocker and Aadhaar will act as a ‘Base Identity’ from where address or identity changes will be reflected on other platforms, saving time and cost. Currently, updating one’s Aadhaar, For example, does not update the address on their income tax portal registration.”
He said that DigiLocker will now be a one-stop solution for matching and updating of identities and addresses to set up the DigiLocker service and using Aadhaar as the basic identity. Permanent Account Number (PAN) and Aadhaar will be used as a common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies, under the National Data Governance Policy to save so much time and make it easier for all.
“DigiLocker will help businesses to securely store and share documents online, as and when required, with various authorities, regulators, banks and other business entities,” Chawla said.
Fintech businesses have already been facilitated by the government’s digital public infrastructure including Aadhaar, PM Jan Dhan Yojana, Video KYC, India Stack and UPI, and the new DigiLocker ecosystem being built by the government is a step in the positive direction, he added. step. This will help India improve its ‘Ease of Doing Business’ global ranking.
Amar Dev Singh, Head (Advisory), Angel One said, “India’s fintech space is divided into five segments – payments which includes QR payments, bill payments and other aggregator services; Lending includes buy now, pay later and lending platforms, the third includes digital banking platforms, insurance platforms and wealth management platforms that enable investments and AI-based advisory services.”
Singh said that in order to gain access to any of these financial services, people are required to submit identity proof, and it is essential for these platforms to verify the identity details presented during the onboarding process. Over the years, fintech platforms have simplified the KYC process to enhance customer experience. However, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s announcement during the Union Budget 2023-24 to provide fintech platforms access to documents in DigiLocker to authenticate users is a game-changer.
“With its Digital India mission, the Government of India has facilitated the growth of fintech in the country by providing access to other digital public infrastructure such as Aadhaar, PM Jan Dhan Yojana, Video KYC, UPI, etc. As a result, the Indian fintech industry is projected to grow to $1.3 trillion by 2025,” he said.
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