The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched a new facility to streamline Permanent Account Number (PAN) and bank account validation on the income tax e-filing website. This aims to speed up and simplify the process for taxpayers and government departments.
In a circular, NPCI introduced a new Application Programming Interface (API) designed to enable real-time verification of PAN details, bank account status, and account holder identity. The data will be verified directly from the Core Banking Systems (CBS) of banks.
The circular stated, “This API will be used by Government departments to verify the customer account details like PAN validation, account status validation, and account holder name validation from their bank CBS.”
An API is a software bridge that allows two systems to communicate and share data. In this case, the API will allow government platforms such as the income tax portal to fetch validation details securely and instantly from a bank’s internal systems.
NPCI also urged all member banks to implement the facility on priority, as the service is being provided to the Government of India.
What does this mean for taxpayers?
This new validation facility is expected to:
- Speed up the PAN-bank account linking process
- Reduce manual errors during verification
- Ensure faster refunds and other tax-related payments
- Improve the security and reliability of taxpayer data validation
