DFS and RBI Push for Unified Lending Interface to Accelerate Inclusive Credit Access
The Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance, hosted a high-level meeting on scaling up the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) — a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for inclusive and efficient credit access across India. The meeting was co-chaired by Shri M. Nagaraju, Secretary, DFS, and Shri T. Rabi Sankar, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and held in New Delhi.
The ULI platform aims to revolutionize the lending ecosystem by combining technology, data, and policy into one seamless framework. Designed to replicate the impact of UPI in payments, ULI focuses on inclusive and frictionless credit, especially targeting underserved communities and borrowers.
Senior officials from Central Ministries, State Governments, RBI, and the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub participated. Shri Nagaraju emphasized the integration of trusted government datasets with lending institutions to enable fast, inclusive, and data-driven lending.
The DFS Secretary also highlighted the need to bring various ongoing initiatives under a unified credit ecosystem without losing their unique purpose — ultimately creating a resilient and integrated infrastructure.
Shri T. Rabi Sankar echoed similar sentiments, stressing ULI’s transformative potential, possibly exceeding that of UPI. He encouraged state and central ministries to treat this platform as a collaborative opportunity and proactively contribute datasets to maximize ULI’s effectiveness.
The key outcomes from the meeting include:
- Digitally integrate high-value datasets from government ministries and departments with ULI
- Nominate nodal officers to streamline data integration
- Digitize and link land and related records at the state level
- Align other lending schemes under the ULI framework to create a unified delivery system
Source: PIB
