Open Banking in India gets a significant boost with early adopters getting Certified on the Account Aggregator ecosystem
Bangalore, January 3, 2021. Sahamati Foundation (or Sahamati) announced the go-live of the first wave of early adopters in the Account Aggregation (AA) eco-system in the first-ever AA community event on December 28, 2020. These early adopters are Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Indusind Bank, Bajaj Finserve, DMI Finance.
The account aggregator framework empowers every citizen of the country to have access and control over their data. It could empower Indians with opportunities to improve their own lives.
The event began with a keynote speech from Shri. Sudarshan Sen (Former Executive Director at RBI). Sudharshan recalled how RBI decided to regulate AA as a category of NBFC (due to no money movement involved). He opined that the seamless movement of data with consent is unique, and the world would learn from us in the future. Following the keynote speech, there were two expert panel discussions.
Panel discussion on ‘Open banking and its impact on Indian consumers’
Lars Markull moderated the discussion and joined by experts such as Anjani Rathor (Chief Digital Officer, HDFC Bank), Bijith Bhaskar (National Head, Digital Banking, Partnerships and e-commerce, ICICI Bank), Sameer Shetty (Head, Digital Business and Transformation, Axis Bank), Anshuj Sahaya (Business Head, Business Loans – Direct at Bajaj Finserv), and Raveesh Bhatnagar (SVP and Head – Digital Banking, IndusInd).
The panelists agreed that loans (credit underwriting and collection) would kick start AA adoption among consumers, and future success will depend on the simplicity of data sharing and new products on AA. AA will help India as the country progress, and it will take us multiple steps ahead and serve the consumers at the bottom of the pyramid. The panelists cautioned that we should not overestimate in the near term and underestimate the long term. This is just the beginning, and making data a prerogative of consumers will help extend AA to non-financial domains such as healthcare and telecom.
Panel discussion on ’How will data drive the next-generation of digital finance.’
Amit Goel (Co-founder, Medici) moderated the discussion and joined by experts such as Saurabh Nigam (CTO, DMI Finance), Manish Bhatia (President- Lendingkart Technologies), Srikanth Rajagopalan (CEO, Perfios AA), and Arjun Singh (Managing Director, Asia, Yodlee).
The panelists stressed the importance of accurate data and how it will drive innovation and reduce the cost of doing business for financial institutions. AA can create wealth and expect entrepreneurs to build multiple unicorns on top of AA data soon. AA is not just a channel for data acquisition, and the ecosystem players should actively invest and innovate around AA data.
Later, the first wave of AAs, such as FinVu and OneMoney, demonstrated how consumers could link their financial accounts in their AA mobile application.
“As one of the early adopters of this movement, insights from the top 20 organizations engaged in the AA ecosystem is invaluable. They shared their knowledge and experience around implementing and supporting public digital infrastructure,” said B.G Mahesh, Co-Founder & CEO, Sahamati.
