Banks appear to be unfazed by the Supreme Court verdict that bars them from insisting on the submission of the Aadhaar number while opening new accounts.

They already seem to have worked out a way to get round the legal roadblock.

State Bank of India chairman Rajnish Kumar said that the apex court judgment makes it clear that the submission of the Aadhaar number will no longer be mandatory.

Some bankers feel there is no reason why banks cannot collect this data if the customer “volunteers” this information although lawyers said a legal challenge could not be ruled out by consumers if banks press ahead with the plan.

The Supreme Court ruled that “there cannot be a mandatory provision of linking of every bank account (with the Aadhaar number)”.

“Nobody would keep black money in the bank account. We accept the possibility of opening an account in an assumed name and keeping black money therein… the persons doing such an act, if at all, would be very few,” the majority judgment said.

The verdict did not say anything about the voluntary submission of the Aadhaar document — and that has given banks the hope that they will be able to exploit this lacuna to cull Aadhaar data.

The SBI chairman provided some justification for this course of action.

“Everybody will have to honour the Supreme Court's judgment, but I believe from services point of view it (Aadhaar) is a great facility.… It is very convenient to open a bank account using an Aadhaar card. Today, on our digital platform, if a customer wants to open a bank account with Aadhaar card, it can be opened within five minutes and the account also becomes operational immediately,” Kumar said.

He said the country’s largest bank has been opening close to 27,000 digital accounts per day using its Yono platform, and no paper work is required for these accounts since KYC is done through the electronic route.

Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar.com, an online marketplace for financial products, said regulators like the RBI would now have to come out with revised directives on KYC (know your customer) practices that banks or others will have to follow.

According to Shetty, clarification is now needed to figure out the impact of the order on the existing e-KYC processes for opening a bank account.

While the Supreme Court judgment has prompted calls that banks and telecom should erase the Aadhaar data that they have already collected from their customers, some lawyers are of the view that this could bring its own set of challenges. “You will need a supplementary legal regime to deal with the aftermath of striking down Section 57 of the Act,” said Pavan Duggal, a cyber law expert.