How 'Sahamati' will make bank A/C opening, loans completely digital
After Aadhaar, Nandan Nilekani is ushering the next phase of digital India. At a recent event in Mumbai, the Infosys co-founder announced Sahamati, a non-profit organization to boost the adoption of Account Aggregators and eliminate the friction in financial data sharing. These AAs will help individuals share their digital financial data with financial institutions for opening bank A/Cs, securing loans, other services. Here's how.
Full control over digital financial data and its sharing
When the world continues to grapple with issues revolving around privacy, Sahamati will push for full control of digital financial data through Account Aggregators. These RBI-approved Non-Banking Financial Corporations will securely fetch information like bank statement, ITRs, Aadhaar, PAN details and let you share the same with authorized third parties - with an option to revoke this access at any point.
How this would prove useful?
With AAs, people willing to seek a loan will be able to share their financial details with the bank using a simple mobile app. Similarly, those seeking financial planning services will be able to share details of their active mutual funds, PFs, and banking accounts. The facility will expedite access to financial services and eliminate the need for visiting different institutions physically for paper-verification.
Currently, six Account Aggregators have been approved
As of now, six Account Aggregators have been approved by RBI for the data-sharing framework, including NESL Asset Data, CAMS Finserv Financial Services, Cookiejar Technologies Pvt Ltd, FinSec AA Solutions Pvt Ltd, Yodless Finsoft Pvt Ltd, and Jio Information Solutions.
However, your data will not be seen or sold
As the matter revolves around personal financial data, Nilekani assured that the data obtained and transferred by AAs will not be seen, stored or sold in any way. Not to mention, the date-sharing framework has got in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India, Securities and Exchanges Board of India, Insurance Regulatory and Development Agency, and the Provident Fund Regulatory and Development Agency.
Here's what Nilekani said about data sharing through AAs
"The consent itself is programmable," Nilekani said, noting that "you can stipulate how your data can be used, just once, or that it will expire in a week. It is designed to be used by a billion-plus people and 11 million businesses for their GST."
Meanwhile, who will lead Sahamati
Sahamati will be headed by OneIndia founder BG Mahesh as well as members from banks and organizations engaged in finance management, mutual funds, account aggregation, and others. They will hold workshops and awareness programs to get more Account Aggregators and Finance intelligence units into the data-sharing framework. Notably, the same model is expected to be replicated for providing access to healthcare, education services, too.
