Telenor to roll out e-KYC across 2000 stores in India

In its bid to take customer on-boarding experience to the next level, Telenor India is implementing e-KYC based SIM activation facility across its six circles.

Telenor has successfully completed deployment of e-KYC facility at 700 stores. By end of November the company plans to extend the facilities to all its 2,000 exclusive retail outlets across circles.

E-KYC is an electronic customer verification service and is an alternate activation process recommended by the Department of Telecom to verify a mobile subscriber’s credentials. A customer can now instantly activate a Telenor mobile connection by providing his Aadhar number followed by biometric verification at the Telenor store. Through E-KYC the SIM gets activated in a few minutes.

Speaking at the launch of the e-KYC facility, Upanga Dutta, Chief Marketing Officer, Telenor India said, “We are very excited about rolling out e-KYC as this heralds a new era of digitalization and is a step forward in making Digital India a reality. This is in line with our ambition of becoming the preferred partner in the digital life of our customers. In a mobile first country, e-KYC reinforces our commitment to make mobile services simple and easy by using innovative technology solutions.”

Telenor plans to extend the facilities to 10,000 Point of Sales and take the services to mass market customer subsequently.

The e-KYC guidelines were issued by the DoT in August and are part of its efforts to make the entire process digital and foolproof. As part of the e-KYC process, customers purchasing a new mobile connection need to submit their Aadhar number and verify their credentials through fingerprint biometrics.

The details are instantly matched with the UIDAI database and after validation the connection is activated. The new process ensures confidentiality and privacy of customer information as paper documentation is eliminated. As the process does not require a tele-verification, it radically reduces the waiting time for a new connection.