The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon launch the "Unified Lending Interface" (ULI), RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced on Monday. The platform, introduced as a pilot project last year, aims to transform the lending space in India by providing a seamless and consent-based flow of digital information.
What is Unified Lending Interface?
ULI is a public tech platform aimed at bringing efficiency to the lending process by reducing costs, quicker disbursement, and scalability. It will facilitate a seamless and consent-based flow of digital information, including land records from multiple states, to lenders. It is designed to provide "frictionless credit", reducing the time taken for credit appraisal, especially for small and rural borrowers.
Benefits of ULI
ULI will cater to the large unmet demand for credit across various sectors, particularly for agricultural and MSME borrowers, said Shaktikanta Das.
"Just like UPI transformed the payments ecosystem, we expect that ULI will play a similar role in transforming the lending space in India," Mr Das said, as per news agency ANI.
He added that the "new trinity" of JAM-UPI-ULI will be a revolutionary step forward in India's digital infrastructure journey.
How ULI work will work
ULI will have common and standardised APIs, designed for a 'plug and play' approach, to ensure digital access to information from diverse sources, explained Shaktikanta Das. It will reduce the complexity of multiple technical integrations and enable lenders to access financial and non-financial data from various sources.
The RBI Governor said the it was consistently working to secure the financial system in the country by devising policies to make it stronger, nimble, and customer-centric.
