AePS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System)
AePSAn NPCI-operated payment system in India that lets a customer access their bank account at a banking correspondent terminal using Aadhaar number and biometric authentication, primarily for cash withdrawal, balance enquiry, and small fund transfer.
Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) is the rail behind the last-mile banking-correspondent network that brings basic banking services to customers without smartphones or in cash-economy regions. A customer presents their Aadhaar number and a biometric (fingerprint or iris) to a terminal operated by a business correspondent of any participating bank, and can perform a withdrawal, deposit, balance check, or fund transfer.
Settlement involves multiple parties: the issuer bank (where the customer's account lives), the acquirer bank (sponsoring the business correspondent), and the correspondent network operator. The reconciliation surface is correspondingly multi-legged: each transaction generates entries on the issuer side, the acquirer side, the correspondent's own books, and the cash position at the terminal.
AePS has its own dispute regime under NPCI rules, with specific timelines for charge-backs and reversal claims. Correspondent-network operators run dedicated reconciliation processes against AePS settlement reports, terminal cash counts, and bank-side credits to identify mis-postings and shortages.