DFS Secretary urges fast-tracking of government data integration with ULI

ULI, seen as the UPI of credit, gets a push from the DFS and RBI, which have asked ministries and states to onboard datasets for seamless and inclusive credit delivery

To accelerate the rollout of the Unified Lending Interface (ULI), M Nagaraju, secretary, Department of Financial Services (DFS), on Monday urged all stakeholders to nominate nodal officers to expedite the integration of government datasets with the platform. Stressing its transformative potential, the secretary noted that ULI is poised to become India’s next UPI — this time on the credit side of the financial ecosystem.

 

The statement came during a high-level meeting co-chaired by the secretary, DFS, and T Rabi Sankar, deputy governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The meeting brought together senior officials from 13 ministries and departments of the Government of India, 11 state governments, RBI Innovation Hub (RBIH), the RBI and the DFS to deliberate on scaling up ULI, according to a finance ministry statement.

 

Highlighting ULI as a critical component of India’s Digital Public Infrastructure, the RBI deputy governor urged ministries and state governments to onboard their datasets to unlock the full potential of the platform for seamless, inclusive and efficient credit delivery. 

 

ULI is being developed as a transformative credit rail to democratise access to formal credit by leveraging public digital infrastructure, enabling faster, more accurate credit assessments through secure, consent-based data sharing.

 

ULI is a platform that unlocks financial and non-financial data, making credit underwriting seamless and customer journeys frictionless for a diverse range of borrowers.

 

According to Business Standard reporting on December 27, 2024, ULI — RBI’s UPI-like digital public infrastructure in the lending space — has facilitated the disbursal of over 600,000 loans amounting to Rs 27,000 crore.

 

Out of this, about 160,000 loans amounting to Rs 14,500 crore were disbursed to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), according to the RBI’s Trend and Progress report.

 

According to the report, 12 loan journeys have been introduced on the ULI platform, including Kisan Credit Card, digital cattle, MSME (unsecured), housing, personal, tractor, micro business, vehicle, digital gold, e-Mudra, pension and dairy maintenance loans.

 

“Based on the learnings and the positive response from stakeholders, the scope and coverage of the platform is being expanded to include more loan journeys, data providers and lenders,” the RBI said in the report.