India's AA network: New pricing model to now be rolled out from Dec 1

Sahamati has deferred the new pricing model's rollout from November 1 to December 1, giving financial institutions another month of free data access amid requests for postponement

Financial institutions tapping India’s account aggregator (AA) network will get another month of free data access. This comes as industry alliance Sahamati defers the rollout of its new pricing model to December 1, 2026, from November 1, according to a circular seen by Business Standard.

 

The decision comes on the back of requests for postponement and the upcoming festival season, the circular said.

 

The deferred model will give the AA ecosystem a standard pricing structure for the first time, after three years of deliberation with the industry.

 

Under it, financial institutions requesting data will pay the institutions that hold it, with the fee shared among the data provider, the account aggregator and Sahamati.

 

“Keeping in mind the upcoming festival season and requests for postponement, all financial information users (FIUs), AAs and financial information providers (FIPs) are informed that rollout of the proposed economic model has been postponed to December 1, 2026,” Sahamati said in a circular on Monday.

 

It is the self-regulatory organisation (SRO) for the AA ecosystem. 

 

The organisation said the implementation and operational details of the rollout will be notified via subsequent circulars.

 

As part of the new economic model, financial firms that pull customer data through the AA network will pay a standard fee. Entities participating in the AA ecosystem cannot directly charge customers for sharing data through the network. 

 

AAs are entities that move a customer’s financial data from one institution to another, such as from a bank to a lender, but only with the customer’s consent.

 

They pass the data along without being able to read or store it. 

 

Entities that hold customer data, such as banks, are called FIPs, and those that request it, such as lenders, are called FIUs. The main idea of AA is to create ease of credit facility or access to other financial services.

 

The lender or an FIU pays all three fees to the AA in a single bill. The AA keeps its share and passes the rest on to the bank and Sahamati. FIPs were not paid before, and the fee paid by an FIU would be passed on to AAs and technology service providers (TSPs).

 

Banks, lenders and AAs that use the network will move to common pricing under a single standard contract. It will replace the separate deals they had struck with each other so far, including those routed through intermediaries such as TSPs.

 

So far, these intermediaries have connected lenders and banks to the AA network and charged for that service. AAs can still charge lenders separately for extra value-added services such as custom software tools.