New Delhi: India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), including Aadhaar, the Unified Lending Interface (ULI), and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), should be harnessed to expand credit access to 450 million untapped borrowers, according to a report released on Monday.

The report by the Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE), a Reserve Bank of India-recognised self-regulatory body, said India’s DPI has transformed the lending landscape by digitising and simplifying onboarding, underwriting, and collections through consent-based, paperless, and app-first systems.

Developed in collaboration with D91 Labs by Setu, the report found that fintech non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) accounted for 74 per cent of personal loan volumes in FY 2024–25. Aadhaar-based onboarding has scaled significantly, processing over 390 million e-KYC transactions each month.

The study highlighted that Aadhaar-enabled e-KYC, DigiLocker, and eSign have cut onboarding costs from $23 to just $0.50. Meanwhile, the Account Aggregator framework has helped underwrite over 18.9 million loans, and UPI now facilitates more than 151 million debt collections every month.

The report called for stronger collaboration among regulators, financial institutions, and innovators to support sustainable digital lending growth.

“India's DPI turned smartphones into a credit gateway, bringing millions of underserved customers and unmet credit needs into formal credit. By embedding frictionless onboarding, transactions, and real-time data sharing into the lending process, DPI is making digital lending the default choice, making access to formal credit easier and faster. The continued growth and market needs will require further innovations and enhancements in DPIs, including leveraging Aadhaar, UPI, ULI, and CBDC to deliver convenient, safe, and purpose-built credit to 450 million untapped borrowers.", said Sugandh Saxena, CEO of FACE.

FACE also noted that of the more than 491 million UPI users, monthly collections and EMI payments average ₹77,000 crore via UPI and ₹15,521 crore through the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS).

IANS