Account Aggregator: is a non-banking financial company that facilitates sharing of financial information in a real-time manner between regulated entities.

• The Account Aggregator is engaged in the business of providing the service of retrieving or collecting financial information pertaining to its customer.
• It is also engaged in consolidating, organizing and presenting such information to the customer or any other financial information as may be specified by the bank.
• The licence for Account Aggregators (AAs) is issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Account aggregator systems will act as an intermediary to collect data from Financial Information Providers (FIP) like Bank, NBFC, mutual funds that hold the consumer’s personal financial data. The data will be shared with the Financial Information Users (FIU) like the lending bank that wants access to the borrower’s data to determine if the borrower qualifies for a loan. Banks can play a dual role – as a FIP and as an FIU. However, for sharing customer data, the bank or financial institution will have to take the customer’s consent.

Source: EPIC September 2021