India's Account Aggregator (AA) ecosystem facilitated an estimated ₹3.82 lakh crore in loan disbursals across 3.68 crore loans in FY26, now accounting for 8.4 per cent of India's retail and MSME lending by value and 11.8 per cent by volume, according to a report released on Thursday, 27 August. The findings mark a decisive shift in how mainstream lenders are adopting consent-based financial data infrastructure.

Scale and Sectoral Reach

The report, published by Sahamati — the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)-recognised Self-Regulatory Organisation for the AA ecosystem — shows the framework has moved well beyond its early footing in unsecured retail lending. AA-enabled home loans and loans against property reached 1.09 lakh loans worth ₹20,777 crore in FY26, a 624 per cent year-on-year increase — the sharpest sectoral surge recorded in the report.

This expansion into secured credit signals that lenders are increasingly confident in AA-sourced data for higher-value, longer-tenure products, not just quick personal loans.

Banks Close the Gap on NBFCs

A structural shift in institutional participation is also underway. Banks accounted for 47.3 per cent of AA-enabled lending by value in H2 FY26, nearly matching non-bank finance companies (NBFCs) — which had long dominated the ecosystem's early adoption. The narrowing gap suggests that public and private sector banks are now treating the AA framework as a core underwriting tool rather than an experimental channel.

Financial Inclusion Signals

The report surfaces early evidence of the framework's reach into underserved borrower segments. Among participating institutions, new-to-credit borrowers made up 18.2 per cent of AA-enabled loan originations by volume. Women borrowers accounted for 19.8 per cent of loan volumes and 19.1 per cent of disbursed value — figures that point to the framework's potential to extend formal credit to those with limited or evolving credit histories.

'As more financial information sources come on stream, the framework will help make lending faster, more inclusive and more efficient for both financial institutions and customers,' said Shalini Gupta, Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer at Sahamati.

What Comes Next

The report forecasts that the expansion of financial information sources — including GST, CBDT, and EPFO data — will further strengthen cash flow-based lending and unlock new use cases across retail, MSME, and secured credit segments. These integrations are expected to accelerate the next phase of AA adoption, particularly for small businesses that lack traditional collateral but have verifiable transaction histories.

With the ecosystem already processing a significant share of India's retail and MSME credit, the trajectory suggests the AA framework is transitioning from a fintech experiment to a foundational layer of India's lending infrastructure.