ULI currently is in the pilot stage and will be available for use soon.
The Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Shaktikanta Das announced a nationwide launch of the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) which will happen in due course. After the success story of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) the new venture introduced by RBI focuses on providing “frictionless credit” and will be available to the people of India soon.
While speaking at an event of the Global Conference on Digital Public Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies which was held in Bengaluru, Governor Das said that the technology platform will be named “Unified Lending Interface (ULI)”.
Speaking on the same, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the RBI expects ULI to transform the lending landscape. “Just like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) changed the payments ecosystem, similarly we expect ULI to transform the lending landscape,” Das said while addressing the crowd at the event held in Bengaluru.
The Reserve Bank of India launched a pilot project in August last year, for frictionless credit for a public tech platform. The new venture aims to bring in efficiency in the lending process in various terms like reduction of costs, quicker disbursement, and scalability. It aims at making the lending process easy and seamless. ULI is also a consent based flow of digital information which also includes land records of various states and multiple data service providers to lenders.
Currently, data needed for credit assessment is available from various institutions such as central and state governments, account aggregators, banks, credit information firms, and digital identity authorities. However, with the platform, all data will be available in a single area.
ULI is projected to meet substantial unmet credit demand across diverse sectors, notably for agricultural and MSME borrowers, by digitizing access to consumer financial and non-financial data that was previously stored in fragmented silos, according to the RBI governor on Monday.
With rapid progress in digitalisation, India has adopted the concept of digital public infrastructure, which promotes banks, NBFCs, fintech companies, and start-ups to develop and supply innovative payment, credit, and other financial solutions.
ULI will reduce the time taken for credit appraisal specifically for smaller and rural borrowers, the governor further stated.
Designed for a plug and play approach to ensure and limit the digital access to information and data from diverse sources, the ULI architecture has common and standardised APIs, further stated by the RBI governor.
ULI currently is in the pilot stage and will be available for use soon. “The pilot for ULI was launched last year by the RBI to enable frictionless credit and based on the experience of the pilot, RBI will decide to launch ULI nationwide,” Das said.
In the speech at the event of the Global Conference on Digital Public Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies, Governor Das said, “The earlier trinity was Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM). The new trinity JAM-UPI-ULI will be a revolutionary step in India’s digital infrastructure journey,”
The dependency of ULI’s future is on the success of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). India launched UPI in April 2016 by the National Corporation of India (NPCI). This real-time payment system has revolutionised the means of payment in India. Setting a new record of 14.04 billion transactions worth ₹20.45 trillion.
Since its debut, it has been India’s preferred digital payment channel, with over 30 crore individuals and five crore businesses using it. In August of last year, UPI accomplished an incredible milestone of 10 billion transactions. According to a January study, UPI transactions totaled over 118 billion last year. This was a 60% increase over the 74 billion UPI transactions reported in 2022.
Another indicator of UPI’s success is its presence in overseas nations. Malaysia, France, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Oman, and Bhutan all accept payments via UPI apps.
As the Centre remarked, UPI’s amazing uptake and acceptance today is a one-of-a-kind tale, unparalleled in terms of scope and impact.