Linking Aadhaar to bank accounts is mandatory under Prevention of money laundering Act: RBI issues statement

Linking of Aadhaar with your bank account is not mandatory yet. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in a reply to an RTI query, said that so far it has not issued any instruction on linking the 12-digit biometric number with bank accounts by December 31.

"Some news items have appeared in a section of the media quoting a reply to a Right to Information Act application that Aadhaar number linkage with bank accounts is not mandatory. The Reserve Bank clarifies that, in applicable cases, linkage of Aadhaar number to bank account is mandatory under the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017 published in the Official Gazette on June 1, 2017. These Rules have statutory force and, as such, banks have to implement them without awaiting further instructions," the bank said in its statement in response to an RTI.

According to a report in Business Today, the bank also revealed that it has not even filed any any petition with the Supreme Court on seeking explicit permission of linking the two. "RBI has not filed any petition with the Supreme Court," the RBI said in response to the query.

Earlier, The Centre had set a deadline for banks to link customers' accounts to their Aadhaar by December 31 and if the customers do not do this, their accounts will be blocked.

According to a Finance Ministry notification dated June 1, 2017, its mandatory for bank accounts that had been opened after June 1 to be linked with Aadhaar at the time of opening the account or within 6 months from the date of opening the bank account.