PNB, 3 other PSU banks activate account aggregator system

Public sector lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) has gone live on the account aggregator ecosystem as financial information user (FIU) as well as financial information provider (FIP), the lender said in a press release. Other than PNB, Union Bank of India, Canara Bank and Indian Bank are the three other PSU lenders who have connected to the account aggregator system.

“Punjab National Bank is working on multiple business use cases which can leverage on the account aggregator ecosystem and offer interesting products to its customers. This will further enhance the outreach of the bank to provide customized digital products to its customers,” Atul Kumar Goel, managing director and chief executive officer of PNB said.

Other PSU lenders are in various stages of implementing the process of connecting to the account aggregator system. While State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda and UCO Bank are in the testing phase, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank, Bank of India and Bank of Maharashtra are in the development phase. Central Bank of India is in the evaluation phase, according to information on Sahamati, a member-funded industry alliance.  

Most of the major private sector banks such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank have also connected with the account aggregator system. As of Monday (July 11), a total of 56 banks, fintechs and non-banking finance companies (NBFC) are live on the system.    

Earlier this month, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had directed all public sector banks to implement the account aggregator system by the end of July. The account aggregator system is a financial data exchange where banks, fintechs or NBFCs can exchange customer data after taking consent from such users. The move is expected to give consumers more control over their data and also bring down processing costs for banks through access to better data. The system was introduced in September 2021.  

Under the account aggregator system, a lender who requests the data is called financial information user (FIU) and the one that provides the data is called financial information provider (FIP). The data cannot be shared without taking consumer’s permission. The entities which facilitate the data exchange are account aggregators. OneMoney, FinVu, CAMS and NADL are providing facilitation services after receiving approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). There are 8 entities awaiting RBI approval for providing account aggregator services, a National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) and PhonePe.

Since the launch of the system in 2021, 8.6 lakh accounts are linked by account holders and 8.1 lakh consent requests have been fulfilled so far. 

from "Banking & Finance News: Banking & Finance News Today, Indian Banking & Finance News, World Banking & Finance News Today - The Financial Express " | The Financial Express https://ift.tt/W4EzYQD