ULI aims to address these issues by enabling a consent-based, seamless flow of digital information from multiple data sources.

What is Unified Lending Interface or ULI? The RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced that the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) will soon be rolled out nationwide. This new initiative, much like the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), which has revolutionized the payment system in India, is set to transform the lending sector.

What Did the RBI Governor Reveal? In August last year, the Reserve Bank of India initiated a pilot project aimed at creating a public tech platform for seamless credit delivery. The project was designed to improve lending efficiency by reducing costs, speeding up disbursements, and increasing scalability. On Monday, Governor Das proposed naming this platform the Unified Lending Interface (ULI). He expressed confidence that ULI, like UPI, would reshape its respective ecosystem—this time in the lending sector.

What is Unified Lending Interface? India’s rapid digitalization has paved the way for the concept of digital public infrastructure, encouraging banks, NBFCs, fintech firms, and start-ups to devise innovative solutions for payments, credit, and financial services.

In the current lending system, the data required for credit assessments are housed across various entities such as central and state governments, account aggregators, banks, credit agencies, and digital identity authorities. These fragmented data silos pose obstacles to timely, frictionless credit delivery.

ULI aims to address these issues by enabling a consent-based, seamless flow of digital information from multiple data sources, including state land records, to lenders. This will reduce the time taken for credit evaluations, particularly benefiting small and rural borrowers.

The ULI framework will utilize standardized APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that offer a ‘plug and play’ solution for accessing diverse data sets. By simplifying technical integrations, ULI will allow borrowers to experience faster and more efficient credit delivery without excessive documentation.

Governor Das emphasized that by digitizing access to both financial and non-financial data that had previously been siloed, ULI is expected to meet the vast, unmet demand for credit across sectors such as agriculture and MSMEs.

He described ULI as part of the "new trinity" of JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile)-UPI-ULI, representing a significant milestone in India’s digital infrastructure advancement.

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