Public Good Enablers To Drive India's Next Digital Revolution: BankBazaar.com CEO

Public good enablers like digilocker, account aggregator system and video e-KYC will drive India's next digital revolution as the country sits on a mammoth volume of 50 billion digital transactions, according to BankBazaar.com founder CEO Adhil Shetty.
     
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently spoke about the digital revolution in India and that the country has reached 50 billion digital transactions in 2022.
     
This is three times of what it is in the US and UK, and this is built on the digital public good platforms such as UPI, RuPay and Aadhaar across the digital payment revolution, Shetty said in an interaction.
     
"The point BankBazaar wants to make is there is another revolution happening and the world will recognise it in one or two years from now. And that's going to be the next digital revolution which will be driven by Gen 2 digital public good. The Gen 2 digital public good are digilocker, account aggregator, and video eKYC etc," Shetty said.
     
Stating the numbers, he said there are as many as 128 million (12.8 crore) registered users on digilocker in India today and 400 document types that are integrated. So if you multiply it, technically there are 5 billion (500 crore) e-documents that can be submitted through digilocker.
     
"Now this is a game changer for credit (in the country). With respect to account aggregator, the big change happened after the finance minister asked banks to onboard the system earlier this year.
     
According to Shetty, one billion (100 crore) bank accounts are currently available on the Account Aggregator (AA) system.
     
While the digital payment revolution is led by UPI, the digital credit revolution which, in a way, is tougher as different people get different credit and the loan amount is also completely different. So, what is required here is data.
     
Digilocker among one of the things can facilitate data sharing, he said, adding it needs to be strengthened.
     
"We need to integrate Form 26AS, ePAN from income tax. Currently those integrations are not there in digilocker and also the EPFO related documents are not there in digilocker. But if we can do two or three things... Gen 2 digital public good, it's going to unleash digital credit revolution," the official said.
     
BankBazaar.com is also mulling to be integrated on the AA system.
     
The Goods and Services Network (GSTN) is also expected to be integrated on the AA platform as per the Parliamentary Standing Committee, he said, adding that a project has been going on since 2020 for integrating GSTN and account aggregator.
     
"We are waiting for that to go live because once GSTN data comes in, MSME underwriting, which everyone believes is a big-big credit opportunity, will unleash the power of digital credit to MSMEs. So those are the big things everyone is working on and waiting for," Shetty said further.
     
Bengaluru-based BankBazaar.com began as a loan comparing platform in 2008. Over the years, it has now transitioned into co-branded credit card space, issuing two such cards in association with Yes Bank and RBL Bank. It also offers credit score services.
     
In the second quarter of FY23, it registered 85 per cent year-on-year growth in its top line, clocking a revenue of Rs 170 crore. The company's credit card sales were up by 115 per cent in Q2.