Unified Lending Interface (ULI): What NBFCs Must Build
Unified Lending Interface (ULI): What NBFCs Must Build to Plug Into RBI's New Credit Rail
Last reviewed: November 2026
The unified lending interface (ULI) is RBI's digital public infrastructure for credit, connecting lenders to many data providers through one standardised, plug-and-play set of APIs. It is built by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) with RBI.
This guide is for CTOs, CEOs and heads of digital lending at NBFCs. It explains what ULI offers today, how it differs from the account aggregator framework, and what your systems must do before ULI data can change a credit decision.
Key Takeaways
- As of 31 March 2026, ULI had onboarded 117 lenders, including NBFCs, according to RBI's Annual Report.
- It offered 134 data services and had handled over 9.6 crore API hits across 12 loan journeys.
- ULI lets a lender connect once instead of building separate integrations with each data provider.
- The work for NBFCs sits inside their own stack: orchestration, consent, rules, logging and fallbacks.
What Is ULI and Where Did It Come From?
ULI is a platform that brings together lenders and data providers through a protocol-driven architecture and open APIs. It removes the need for one-to-one integrations between each lender and each data source.
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2023 | RBI launches a pilot of a technology platform for frictionless credit |
| 26 August 2024 | Governor Shaktikanta Das announces the platform as the Unified Lending Interface |
| 12 December 2025 | 64 lenders onboarded, including 41 banks and 23 NBFCs |
| 31 March 2026 | 117 lenders, 134 data services, over 9.6 crore API hits |
| 2026-27 agenda | RBI plans to scale up ULI by onboarding more data providers and lenders |
Governor Das framed "JAM-UPI-ULI" as the next step in India's digital infrastructure. The comparison with UPI is about standardisation: one connection, many participants.
Lender numbers nearly doubled between December 2025 and March 2026. For an NBFC, that means competitors in the same segments may already be using ULI data in their decisions.
What Data Can Lenders Access Through ULI?
ULI's value lies in the breadth of its data services. RBI's December 2025 report listed the main categories.
- Authentication and verification services for identity and document checks.
- Land records data from eight states at that time, central to agricultural and property-backed lending.
- Satellite services for crop and land assessment.
- Transliteration and property search for matching names and assets across records.
- Dairy insights for livestock and dairy loans.
- Credit guarantee services.
Through NABARD's e-KCC platform, ULI is also reaching customers of district central co-operative banks and regional rural banks. That makes it most immediately useful for NBFCs in agri, rural, MSME and vehicle lending.
Which Loan Journeys Are Supported?
RBI's December 2025 report listed 12 journeys: Kisan Credit Card, digital cattle, unsecured MSME, housing, personal, tractor, micro business, vehicle, digital gold, E-Mudra, pension and dairy maintenance loans. If your product sits in one of these, peers are already using ULI data for it.
How Is ULI Different From Account Aggregators?
ULI and AA solve different problems and work well together. The table summarises the difference.
| Feature | ULI | Account Aggregator |
|---|---|---|
| Main purpose | Single access point to many data services | Consent-based sharing of financial information |
| Typical data | Land records, satellite, dairy, verification, credit guarantee | Bank accounts and other financial accounts |
| Built and run by | RBIH, with RBI | RBI-licensed NBFC-AAs |
| Best fit | Agri, rural, MSME, property-linked loans | Income and cash-flow assessment |
| Lender's role | Consumer of data services | Financial Information User |
A tractor loan journey might use ULI for land records and satellite data and an AA for bank statements. Your origination system must combine both into one decision.
What Does a ULI-Enabled Journey Look Like?
A typical farm equipment journey runs in four steps. The borrower consents, the system pulls verification and land records through ULI, satellite data confirms cultivation, and the rules engine sets eligibility and limit.
The bureau check and any bank statement analysis run alongside, not instead. ULI shortens the slowest part of rural lending, which is usually collecting and verifying land and asset evidence.
Is your loan origination system ready to use land, satellite and dairy data in a single decision?
Talk to Our Lending Technology Specialists
Visit Digiqt to see how we build loan origination journeys and integrations for NBFCs.
What Must NBFCs Build to Use ULI?
ULI provides the rail, but each lender builds the station. Most of the effort sits in connecting ULI to existing loan origination and decision systems, so plan that internal work early.
| Component | What It Does | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Integration layer | Calls ULI services, handles authentication, retries and timeouts | Keeps ULI changes away from core systems |
| Journey orchestration | Decides which services to call at each step | Avoids paying for data you will not use |
| Consent capture | Records borrower consent for each data request | Supports audit and data protection duties |
| Data mapping | Converts responses into fields your rules understand | Land and satellite data need interpretation |
| Rules engine | Uses ULI variables in eligibility, limits and pricing | Data only matters if it changes decisions |
| Audit store | Logs requests, responses and decisions | Explains every decision to auditors |
| Fallback paths | Switches to manual or alternative checks | Services and state coverage vary |
Digiqt's credit underwriting automation AI agent shows how new data sources can be folded into consistent underwriting. For farm lending, the agri loan risk assessment AI agent shows how land and crop signals can be read together.
Which NBFC Segments Gain the Most?
The benefit depends on how much your credit decision relies on non-financial data. The table below is a planning view, not an RBI classification.
| NBFC Segment | ULI Data That Helps | Decision It Improves |
|---|---|---|
| Tractor and farm equipment | Land records, satellite data | Landholding and crop-based eligibility |
| Dairy and livestock | Dairy insights | Repayment capacity from milk income |
| MSME and micro business | Verification services, credit guarantee | Faster checks and guarantee-backed limits |
| Housing and property loans | Land records, property search | Title and ownership checks |
| Vehicle loans | Verification services | Faster onboarding and fewer manual checks |
Urban salaried lenders may see less immediate value. Their decisions lean on bureau and bank statement data, where the account aggregator route already works well.
Who Should Own the Programme?
Treat ULI as a product programme with a business owner, not an IT ticket. The credit team must decide which variables change policy, or the integration will deliver data nobody uses.
How Much Integration Work Does ULI Save?
This is an illustrative comparison with assumed effort figures. An NBFC lending for tractors and dairy needs nine external data connections: land records in four states, one satellite source, two dairy sources, transliteration and property search.
Built one by one, assume six weeks of engineering per integration. That is 54 weeks of build effort, plus ongoing maintenance for nine separate contracts and formats.
Through ULI, assume ten weeks for the core connection and one week to map each service. That is 19 weeks, a saving of 35 weeks, with one interface to maintain instead of nine.
The lesson for leadership: the saving funds the internal work. Reinvest it in rules, monitoring and fallbacks, which decide whether ULI improves approvals.
Which Mistakes Should NBFCs Avoid?
Early adopters can avoid the most common traps.
- Connecting without a credit use case. Data that does not change a rule or limit adds cost and nothing else.
- Assuming national coverage. Land records coverage depends on which states are live, so design fallbacks.
- Hard-wiring ULI into the core. A separate integration layer makes future service changes cheaper.
- Skipping consent and logging. Every data call should be traceable to a borrower's consent and a decision.
What Is Changing Next?
RBI's agenda for 2026-27 is to scale up ULI by onboarding more data service providers and lenders. Its Annual Report also says a customer-facing application is being developed, which could change how borrowers start journeys.
Expect more states, more services and more lenders over time. Design your integration so a new service can be switched on through configuration rather than a fresh build.
For NBFCs, the practical step is to pick one journey where ULI data would change decisions and pilot it. The AI agents for NBFCs guide covers where automation can sit around that journey, and a modular digital lending platform makes new rails easier to add.
Which of your loan journeys would change most if land and farm data arrived through one connection?
Talk to Our Lending Technology Specialists
Visit Digiqt to see how we build lending platforms and AI agents that use India's digital public infrastructure.
