UPI-like Unified Lending Interface ready: RBI Governor

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh/New Delhi, August 26

The lending space in India is on the verge of transformation as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is planning to launch Unified Lending Interface (ULI) across the country, which would enable borrowers to get the benefit of seamless delivery of credit with quicker turnaround time without requiring extensive documentation.

It is expected that ULI would cut down the time taken for credit appraisal, especially for smaller and rural borrowers.

On Monday, in a keynote address at the Global Conference on Digital Public Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies, a part of RBI@90 initiative in Bengaluru, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the central bank was set to launch ULI nationwide soon as it expects this platform to transform the lending sector in India just like UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has transformed the payments ecosystem.

The pilot of ULI technology platform was launched last year platform which enables frictionless credit. “Based on our experience from the pilot project, a nationwide launch of the ULI will be done in due course. Just like UPI transformed the payments ecosystem, we expect that ULI will play a similar role in transforming the lending space in India,” Das said.

“From now on, we propose to call it the Unified Lending Interface (ULI). This platform facilitates seamless and consent based flow of digital information, including even land records of various states, from multiple data service providers to lenders,” Das added.

According to Das, it enables borrowers to get the benefit of seamless delivery of credit, quicker turnaround time without requiring extensive documentation.

In sum, by digitising access to customer’s financial and non-financial data that otherwise resided in disparate silos, ULI is expected to cater to large unmet demand for credit across various sectors, particularly for agricultural and MSME borrowers.

The ULI architecture has common and standardised APIs, designed for a ‘plug and play’ approach to ensure digital access to information from diverse sources. This reduces the complexity of multiple technical integrations.

On Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), Das said, “There should not be in any rush to roll out system-wide CBDC before one acquires a comprehensive understanding of its impact on users, on monetary policy, on the financial system and on the economy.”

The RBI launched CBDC pilots in both retail and wholesale segments in late 2022.