Open Finance in India: UPI for Credit, AA 2.0 & Beyond
At the Bharat Fintech Summit, Vikrant Kulkarni decoded the next phase of India’s financial evolution Open Finance.
India has already transformed payments.
Now, the disruption is shifting to credit, underwriting, and consent-led data infrastructure.
- UPI for Credit: Lending at the Point of Payment
With Credit Line on UPI, QR codes are becoming credit access points.
Customers can:
- Use pre-approved credit limits
- Access revolving lines
- Pay seamlessly via UPI apps
For banks & NBFCs, this unlocks:
- Embedded distribution
- Behavioral underwriting
- Scalable, low-cost credit delivery
UPI is no longer just a payments rail, It’s evolving into a credit distribution infrastructure.
- Account Aggregator (AA 2.0): The Data Backbone
The Account Aggregator framework is solving digital lending’s biggest challenge, fragmented data.
AA 2.0 enables:
- Consent-based financial data sharing
- Machine-readable, structured datasets
- Faster underwriting cycles
- Stronger fraud & risk management
The Bigger Shift
Open Finance = Payments + Lending + Data + Governance.
It’s not a feature upgrade.
It’s a structural redesign of how financial services are built in India.
If you’re building in UPI, digital lending, or credit infrastructure – this shift is critical.
