In recent years, India has been taking significant strides towards becoming one of the most progressive digital economies in the world. The government’s initiatives, such as Digital India, have pushed the country towards adopting digital payments and online transactions, making financial services more accessible to the masses.
However, with increased digital adoption comes the challenge of managing financial data across various institutions. This is where Account Aggregator (AA) comes in as a game-changer in the financial ecosystem.

The AA framework is an extraordinary promise of transformative impact on the banking industry. It has brought about radical transformations within 5 key segments; customer experience, revenue generation, risk management, NPA reduction and cost savings.

What is an Account Aggregator?

For bank loan applications and government mandates like income tax filing there is always a long list of banking and financial documents to be provided by individuals. Prior to September 2021, there was no single platform where one could pull all bank statements and relevant financial data from. With the introduction of the AA platform

Account Aggregator is a digital platform that allows customers to access their financial data from multiple sources, all in one single place. While it is a silver lining for millions of individuals to have greater control over their financial records, it also is a huge push for the lending and financial institution markets.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has authorized AA as a third party regulated entity to bring together all Financial Information Providers (FIPs) such as banks, mutual fund houses etc. to connect with entities, Financial Information Users (FIUs,) such as banks, individuals etc., who want to use this financial data optimally, enabling billions of accounts to share data seamlessly and securely, based on the consent of the customer.

Impact of Account Aggregator on financial institutions and users

According to a report by ResearchAndMarkets, the Indian account aggregation market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 20% between 2021 and 2026. This growth is expected to be driven by factors such as the increasing adoption of digital payments, the growth of fintech startups in India, and the increasing demand for financial services among India's large and growing middle class.

Financial institutions: AA has helped financial institutions to streamline their operations by enabling faster credit approvals, reducing the risk of fraud, and improving customer experience. The platform also provides insights into customer behavior and preferences, helping institutions offer personalized services and products.
Users: AA has made it easier for customers to manage their finances by providing a single window to access their financial data. The platform has also increased transparency and reduced the risk of errors in financial transactions. According to a survey by Dalberg Advisors, 57% of respondents said that they would be more likely to use digital financial services if they had access to a single platform to manage their finances.

The Economic Survey of India has reported that with 23 banks onboarding the AA platform, more than 1.1 billion bank accounts are currently eligible to share data on the AA system, and already around 3.8 million users have successfully shared data through this platform.

As on 31st December 2022, 27 Financial Institutions have gone live as FIPs, including all 12 PSBs, 10 Private Sector Banks, 1 Small Finance Bank, and 4 Life Insurance Companies. 119 Financial Institutions have gone live as FIUs of which there are 93 RBI Regulated, 12 SEBI Regulated, 12 IRDAI-regulated entities, and 2 PFRDA-regulated entities.

Existing Use Cases/Services of Account Aggregator

The AA platform leverages the power of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to access customer data and help them manage their finances better.

Currently, the platform is designed to share bank transaction data between banks and individuals. For instance, if an individual wants to apply for a loan or fill in their

Income Tax Returns and have several bank accounts, it becomes time consuming and tedious to pull bank statements from different bank accounts.

The AA framework pools the bank statements from current and savings accounts across banks at one place, delivering a swift, secure, reliable and real-time service. This entire process is solely based on the individual’s consent for data sharing, thereby making this whole space 100% safe for data transfers.

Future Services Scope of Account Aggregator

Account Aggregator is still in its early stages, and there is a lot of potential for growth and development. Gradually, AA will include the entire spectrum of financial data for data sharing including tax data, pensions data, securities data (mutual funds and brokerage), and insurance data. For businesses, the inclusion of the GSTN service will also play a dominant role in simplifying credit access for MSMEs.

Financial Institutions and individuals can expect the following upcoming features on the AA platform:

Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN): RBI has included the GSTN as an FIP under Account Aggregator Framework in a memorandum dated November

2022, to all the regulated entities of banks in India.[4]

Onboarding GSTN as a FIP on the AA platform will open up avenues for access to credit for MSMEs, enhancing opportunities and productivity of the MSME sector to create large-scale implications for a resilient production ecosystem.

Insurance & Pension: To apply for insurances, compare insurance policies and premiums across various providers, AA platform will help pull required bank documents in a single gesture, making it easier to choose the right policy.

Investments and Securities: Personal finance, wealth management, mutual funds, demat accounts and more will be included in this segment. AA can provide customers with investment recommendations based on their financial data and preferences.

Tax management: With tax filing being one of the most tiring and long drawn processes, AA can break down this process to a single click, helping customers to extract relevant bank statements and tax exemption documents with ease. The AA framework will aid customers in managing their taxes in a much better way by providing a consolidated view of their income and expenses.

Conclusion

Account Aggregator has emerged as a significant player in the Indian financial ecosystem, providing a single window for customers to manage their finances across various institutions. In fact, India is one of the few nations where these continuous technological innovations and the stupendous growth of digital connectivity has stemmed from the public sector. Though 1.3 billion people in our country face unique data challenges every day, the AA journeys’ framework has been global in outlook, but domestic in innovation and implementation.

About Perfios: Perfios Software Solutions is India’s largest SaaS-based B2B fintech software company enabling 900+ FIs to take informed decisions in real-time. Headquartered in Bangalore, India, Perfios specializes in real-time credit decisioning, analytics, onboarding automation, due diligence, monitoring, litigation automation, and more.

Perfios is a Sahmati empaneled TSP
Perfios’ core data platform has been built to aggregate and analyze both structured and unstructured data and provide vertical solutions combining both consented and public data for the BFSI space catering to their stringent Scale Performance, Security, and other SLA requirements.
You can write to us at connect@perfios.com