Uli to make digital loans faster, safer and more accessible for Indians, says Sahil Kini of Reserve Bank Innovation Hub

The unified loan interface of the Reserve Bank of India (ULI) should transform the way Indians access credit, making digital loans faster, safer and more widely available, according to Sahil Kini, CEO of RBI Innovation Hub.

“The concept is to build a universal API bridge where each data point required by a regulated entity – in particular a lender – to open a digital loan trip from start to finish is made available on a single platform,” Kini at CNBC -TV18 told an exclusive interview on the key line of the Global Fintech Festival.

The platform is designed to simplify loans by aggregating data from several sources, including KYC information, assets, transactions and government databases. This includes land files, vehicle registrations, income tax data and dairy cooperative files, allowing lenders to assess solvency with more precision and more precisely. “Several lenders of all types and sizes are integrated into these APIs, which facilitates their task because, instead of managing several suppliers, they simply come to Uli,” Kini said.

ULI has already experienced a strong adoption, with nearly 60 banks and NBFC integrated into the platform, and more than 100 data service providers contributing to its ecosystem. Kini said that RBI Innovation Hub is more working to evolve, ensuring that each cooperative and regional rural bank can offer digital credit trips from start to finish.

The RBI Innovation HUB, a subsidiary in exclusive ownership of the Central Bank, has a triple mandate: to conduct applied research for the future needs of India, the construction and the scaling of digital public infrastructure, and engaging with the ends, the startups and the academic world to provide innovative solutions in the regulated financial ecosystem.

“The construction of digital public infrastructure is not a trivial exercise. A large part of our objective is currently on the construction and the scaling of all this and the conduct of adoption. As I have said, there are border areas where we are doing research. But it is not yet a phase where I can say that it is something complete,” added Kini.

With ULI, Kini hopes to make credit more accessible to millions of Indians, reducing friction for legitimate borrowers while ensuring fraud detection and solid safety measures. The platform is positioned as a game changer in the digital loan ecosystem in India, a bit like UPI was for payments.

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