AI-driven credit models are projected to bridge a substantial credit gap of $130–170 billion in economic value, reducing the dependence of MSMEs on informal lending, as per the government’s announcement on Wednesday. These models, utilizing consent-based data sharing and advanced analytics, aim to enhance credit assessment, risk management, and expand formal lending to MSMEs, informal workers, rural populations, and women-led enterprises. The Unified Lending Interface (ULI) has been emphasized as a crucial tool for financial inclusion, with 64 lenders, including 41 banks and 23 NBFCs, already integrated.
AI models leverage the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) to evaluate “digital footprints” for risk assessment. ULI, a technology-driven initiative, facilitates seamless access to credit for all citizens by enabling digital connectivity to various data sources like authentication services, land records, satellite services, and other financial and non-financial datasets to streamline loan processing. The expansion of ULI to encompass customers of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and District Central Co-operative Banks (DCCBs) is set to enhance credit accessibility in rural and semi-urban regions.
The introduction of the Account Aggregator (AA) framework by the Reserve Bank of India, a financial data sharing system, complements these advancements. This system enables secure, consent-based sharing of financial data among institutions, significantly reducing documentation requirements and approval timelines for loans. Account Aggregators (AAs), which are NBFCs facilitating the aggregation and transfer of a customer’s financial data between institutions based on individual instructions and consent, have enabled over 2.6 billion accounts for data sharing, with 252.9 million users linking their accounts on the AA framework.
The government also highlighted additional developments such as the JAM convergence, boasting over 144 crore Aadhaar numbers and 58.16 crore Jan Dhan accounts with cumulative deposits exceeding Rs 3 lakh crore, alongside the increasing mobile connectivity, wireless subscribers, and 5G coverage. In a significant move, the Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD) and the RBI signed an MoU in February 2026 to collaborate on integrating BHASHINI’s language AI models to enhance multilingual access to banking and financial services.
