In the evolving landscape of financial inclusion and digital lending, India has introduced several innovative frameworks designed to streamline access to credit, enhance transparency, and create seamless financial ecosystems. Among these, the Unified Lending Interface (ULI), Open Credit Enablement Network (OCEN), and Account Aggregator (AA) stand out as key initiatives aimed at modernizing the way credit and financial data are managed.
While all three initiatives aim to transform the lending sector, each has distinct roles, benefits, and functions. To better understand their unique features and how they interact with one another, we’ve put together a detailed comparison chart.
This side-by-side breakdown helps you identify the core differences between ULI, OCEN, and AA, their respective use cases, and how they collectively contribute to building a more inclusive and tech-driven financial ecosystem in India. Whether you’re a fintech enthusiast, a policy maker, or simply looking to understand the future of credit access, this comparison will offer valuable insights into these transformative frameworks.
| ULI (Unified Lending Interface) | OCEN (Open Credit Enablement Network) | AA (Account Aggregator) | |
| Purpose | Standardized API interface for Lending institutions providing borrower’s financial and non-financial data from various sources, including government databases, and financial institutions. Helps financial institutions to reduce friction for accessing the information needed for quick loan underwriting decisions and efficient loan application processing. | OCEN is a framework of application programming interfaces (APIs) for interaction between lenders, loan agents, collection and disbursement partners, derived data providers, and account aggregators OCEN facilitates flow of credit between borrowers, lenders, and credit distributors using a common set of standards. Various participants in the credit ecosystem can seamlessly connect with one another without needing to build customised APIs and infrastructure. OCEN aims to enable cash-flow based unsecured financing for MSMEs as against balance sheet and collateral based financing. Both ULI and AA can be derived data providers in the OCEN ecosystem. | The Account Aggregator (AA) framework allows users to share consent driven financial data across institutions. Users can access their financial information from multiple institutions in one place, and can decide who can access their data, for how long, and for what purpose. The FI Types are managed by ReBIT. |
| Users | Regulated entities like Lenders, etc | MSME-focused Borrower Agents and Lenders. Other ecosystem participants include Derived Data Providers, Collection Agents, Disbursement Agents and KYC Partners | Financial Information Users which are Regulated entities and Individuals who wish to access their own financial details |
| Key Functionality | Enabling RE’s and Marketplaces to fetch different types of financial and non-financial data for underwriting using standard interface. | Standard rails to connect various participants in the Cash flow based MSME lending ecosystem. Enabling building customised credit products for MSMEs and empowering the Borrower agent as a lynchpin and a representative of the borrowers. | Providing safe, user-consented sharing of financial information between regulated financial institutions via the Account Aggregator framework. Individuals can have a holistic single source to view financial data across various institutions. |
| Data Usage | Utilizes borrower data from diverse sources like banks, land records, and financial history. | Utilizes specific business data of MSMEs like invoices, transactions, etc., for the credit product creation. Any kind of data can be passed to the Lender in the form of derived data. For eg. Government e-Marketplace shares borrower performance data with lenders post consent. | Uses consolidated financial data like bank accounts, GST, income, etc., from FIPs. |
| Role in Ecosystem | Streamline credit access by integrating borrower data from multiple sources for accurate financial assessment, enabling faster loan approvals through advanced analytics, facilitating easy integration with standardized APIs, and providing lenders seamless access to comprehensive borrower information to simplify credit appraisal and reduce documentation | Fosters innovation in MSME credit by enabling tailored loan offerings and faster credit flow thus enabling access to credit to MSMEs which earlier did not have access to the same. Reduce cost of short tenure, low ticket lending and making it viable to give loans to MSMEs which are end use controlled and enable collection control. | Promotes financial inclusion by simplifying financial data sharing and improving credit decision-making. Allowing user to share their data directly with financial institutions in a consented manner removing the data passing through multiple hands. |
| Technology Backbone | Consent-based data-sharing infrastructure; APIs to connect various data sources with lenders. | API infrastructure based on standard OCEN protocol for credit enablement. Participant and Product registries to enable discovery and standardisation within the ecosystem. | API-driven, centralized consent architecture defined by ReBIT under the RBI framework. |
| Regulatory Framework | Proposed under RBI’s initiative to enhance digital lending infrastructure. | Digital Public Infrastructure at a mass roll out stage. Once formalised will be managed and regulated as advised by regulators. | Governing law is the RBI’s Account Aggregator framework under the NBFC-AA license. |
| Use Cases | A farmer applies for a loan to purchase farm equipment. Lender is able to access land records and other non-financial and financial data through ULI interface to underwrite the loan application. | Zomato as a Borrowers agent on behalf of restaurants enrolled on its platform being able to offer custom loan products specifically built for restaurant partners by the participating lenders based on alternate platform data, ability of providing collection control to lenders via cash flow entrapment and acting as a representative of the borrowers instead of agent of lenders. Like Zomato any of platforms or institutions (like FPO) sitting on a Captive database can utilise OCEN to enable lending on their platform benefiting their users. | Individuals being able to share their multiple bank accounts for specific time periods and for specific purposes with the AA framework using consent mechanism. Businesses being able to share GSTN data to RE’s for loan underwriting purpose using consent mechanism. |
| Implementation Stage | Proposed platform; Some pilot Implementations for certain data sources have been done. Overall the ULI is in a development phase. | Few pilots – GeM Sahay, GST Sahay, Jan Aushadhi Kendra and Private network have been successfully tested. More implementations are underway at various stages and gaining traction. | Well-established under the RBI’s regulatory framework with multiple FIP’s and FIU’s already integrated. |
For more information, please visit: http://ocen.dev
Please note: The blog post is authored by our volunteer, Rahul Bhaik