On September 2, over 900 fin-tech players and observers assembled for the operationalisation of India's consent-based financial data sharing mechanism - the 'account aggregator' (AA) ecosystem. The consent-based financial data sharing mechanism, which was first announced in 2015, went live with a number of fin-tech firms as well as eight banks that make up 40% of India's bank accounts according to Kamya Chandra, a fellow at iSPIRT. The operationalisation means that financial data sharing in India is moving towards a consent-based data sharing mechanism facilitated by account aggregators which in turn also allows for the creation of unified financial records for each user. Not only financial data but the AA framework can also be used in other areas including healthcare as revealed later in this report. What are Account Aggregators? Revealed by the RBI first in 2015, Account Aggregators are non-banking financial companies, registered with the RBI, who will act as data access fiduciaries for citizens' financial data. [caption id="attachment_144599" align="alignnone" width="796"] Credit: Sahamati[/caption] Quite simply, this is how an account aggregator enabled financial data sharing mechanism would look like: 1) You would set up an account with one of the approved account aggregators, linking bank account details. 2) If you apply for a loan, the bank instead of asking you to provide your bank statements, income details, etc. separately, in hard copies would request for it through the account aggregator's interface (this could be a mobile application too). 3) You select the information you would like to provide to…
