(MENAFN- KNN India) New Delhi, Oct 9 (KNN) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Wednesday announced the creation of a Unified Market Interface (UMI), a new market infrastructure designed to enable instant buying, selling, and trading of financial assets as digital tokens settled through the central bank digital currency (CBDC).

“Early efforts and results from the inaugural pilot in improving market efficiency here are encouraging,” Malhotra said, speaking at the Global Fintech Fest 2025, reported TOI.

He emphasised that India's digital finance ecosystem has reached a critical juncture, with the next phase of financial inclusion to be driven by data integration, digital currency, asset tokenisation, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity.

The RBI governor highlighted the role of the Account Aggregator framework, which currently covers 160 million accounts and processes 3.6 billion requests, in unlocking the potential of financial data.

Efforts are underway to standardise customer onboarding, consent management, and data security, while promoting interoperability among aggregators.

He also pointed to the Unified Lending Interface, which has sanctioned 3.2 million loans worth Rs 1.7 trillion, as a tool to bridge India's credit gap, particularly for individuals with thin or no credit history.

Malhotra underlined the digital rupee as a pivotal layer of India's digital public infrastructure.

The retail e-rupee, launched in December 2022, now involves 19 banks and 7 million users, with interoperability with UPI enabling wider adoption.

Programmable features are already being used for targeted transfers and subsidies, including Gujarat's G-Safal scheme for farm inputs and Andhra Pradesh's LPG subsidy program.

He noted that India's fintech sector, comprising over 10,000 firms with USD 40 billion in investment over the past decade, benefits from a large technology talent base, a diverse financial ecosystem, and enabling regulatory policies.

“We will continue this facilitation so that fintechs can make use of the digital public infrastructure and financial ecosystem for the collective benefit of the economy,” Malhotra said.

(KNN Bureau)

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