RBI to make account aggregators interoperable; integrate demat and deposit data
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday said it will make account aggregator (AA) platforms interoperable to help customers conveniently access and share their financial information across these platforms.
“We are allowing interoperability among NBFC account aggregators, enabling aggregation of financial information through all account aggregators from one account aggregator,” governor Sanjay Malhotra said on Wednesday while announcing the monetary policy decision. As per RBI’s licensing norms, account aggregators are categorised as NBFC-AAs.
The RBI’s monetary policy committee hiked the key policy repo rate by 25 bps to 5.5%, citing rising inflationary pressures.
Calling the initiative an “important step” in strengthening India’s digital credit infrastructure, Varoon Naidu, co-founder of investment banking and capital markets platform Capital Stack, said, “The AA ecosystem has scaled significantly, but interoperability can make it much more effective by reducing fragmentation and allowing customers to access the ecosystem seamlessly irrespective of the account aggregator they use.”
An account aggregator is a regulated financial technology platform that enables the secure sharing of digital financial customer data between institutions with explicit permission. Such platforms do not store, read, or process customer data, but only transfer encrypted information between financial information providers (banks) to financial information users (lenders).
The initiative to make account aggregator platforms interoperable will allow users to share their data across different financial information providers, through any platform of their choice.
“Empowering NBFC account aggregation bridges the grassroots credit asymmetry, transforming disciplined underwriting into frictionless financial inclusion,” said Ravi Narayanan, managing director and chief executive officer, SMFG India Credit.
Demat holdings
The central bank also announced that depositories regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India are being enabled to include information on bank deposit accounts in their consolidated account statement (CAS) through account aggregators.
“This will enable demat account holders to view information relating to their demat account holdings and bank deposit accounts in one place in the CAS,” RBI said in the Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies, released alongside the monetary policy statement.
Customers, including those who do not have demat accounts, can continue to obtain a consolidated view of their financial information and share the same through account aggregators.
Both measures are expected to be implemented by 31 December, 2026.
An interoperable ecosystem can help materially reduce friction caused by differences in collection, verification, and standardisation processes across lenders, and make the underwriting process faster and more efficient.
This can be “particularly meaningful” for MSMEs and smaller businesses by allowing lenders to assess actual cash flows and financial behaviour rather than relying on traditional bureau scores, collateral or borrower-submitted information, Capital Stack’s Naidu said, adding that this should improve both the availability and quality of credit, reduce turnaround times and potentially allow lenders to price risk more accurately.
