RBI to launch Public Tech Platform for frictionless credit

The Reserve Bank of India has announced the launch of the Pilot Project for Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit by Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the RBI. The Tech Platform would enable delivery of frictionless credit by facilitating a seamless flow of required digital information to lenders.  

The Platform would be rolled out as a pilot project on August 17, 2023 in a calibrated fashion, both in terms of access to information providers and use cases. 

“The Platform is intended to be rolled out as a pilot project in a calibrated fashion, both in terms of access to information providers and use cases. It shall bring about efficiency in the RBI lending process in terms of reduction of costs, quicker disbursement, and scalability," the RBI release read. 

“The end-to-end digital platform will have an open architecture, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and standards, to which all financial sector players can connect seamlessly in a ‘plug and play’ model", the RBI release said. 

It further added that during the pilot, the platform will focus on products such as Kisan Credit Card loans up to ₹1.6 lakh per borrower, Dairy Loans, MSME loans (without collateral), Personal loans and Home loans through participating banks.  

The platform is believed to enable linkage with services such as Aadhaar e-KYC, land records from onboarded State Governments (Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra), Satellite data, PAN Validation, Transliteration, Aadhaar e-signing, account aggregation by Account Aggregators (AAs), milk pouring data from select dairy co-operatives, house/property search data etc.