ULI lender base grows to 89; interface has supported over 12 loan journeys

RBI's ULI onboards 89 lenders, supports 12+ digital loan journeys, enabling MSME, agri and retail credit via common tech infrastructure

In just over two years since launch, Unified Lending Interface (ULI), a digital public infrastructure for the lending ecosystem and also similar to Unified Payments Interface, has taken on board 89 lenders, with the system supporting more than 12 fields in which loan were given, according to a senior executive of the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH). 

 

Of the 89 lenders on board the platform, 12 are public-sector banks, 16 are private-sector banks, 23 non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), and 35 entities associated with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. 

 

The supported loan journeys include the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) or agri, dairy, micro businesses, gold loans, Emudra, personal loans, pension loans, vehicle loans, housing loans, and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). 

 

“Every entity regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is eligible to be taken on board and eligible to join ULI. There are multiple loan products that are supported,” said Sahil Kini, chief executive officer (CEO), RBIH. 

 

According to the RBI, ULI brings together financial-service providers and multiple-data providers through a standardised, protocol-driven architecture, and an open application programming interface (API) framework.

 

Kini said there were 53 data-service providers live on the platform. These provide 141 types of data service. 

 

“The thing I am most excited about is (having) smaller NBFCs, cooperative banks, district central cooperative banks, and urban cooperative banks, which would find it challenging to build these kinds of systems. We will have access to common infrastructure, which they can utilise to build digital journeys,” he said. 

 

He was speaking at the Bharat Fintech Summit 2026.

 

ULI’s digital journeys will allow multiple lenders accessibility to tech infrastructure. 

 

“For lenders, one of the important things is that we will take care of a lot of the headache of taking on board multiple sets of data,” he said, adding that overheads maintaining data types would come down. 

 

Data-service providers on ULI may have expanded market access, he added.  

 

“Once a data-service provider is on board, you can treat it as the largest market of lenders, given that every single lender is going to be live on ULI. Once you are on ULI you have exposure to every single lender and therefore you should be able to go to the market and have the largest volumes through a common rail,” he explained. 

 

Data types include land records and details on goods and services tax. 

 

In 2024, ULI facilitated the disbursement of more than 600,000 loans, worth around ₹27,000 crore. Of this, nearly 160,000 loans, worth about ₹14,500 crore, were for micro, MSMEs, the data shows.