Lenders using India’s Account Aggregator (AA) framework are growing faster, reaching more first-time borrowers and showing comparable or better risk outcomes, according to a new study by CRIF Credit Information Services (CRIF CIC) and Sahamati.
The report, “Consent to Credit – The Digital Way: The Account Aggregator (AA) Impact Report”, combines lender-level, loan-level and pincode-level analysis to assess how consent-based data sharing affects lending.
AA-enabled lending was estimated at ₹3.82 lakh crore across 3.68 crore loans in FY26, according to Sahamati. The ecosystem became operational in September 2021. As of August 2026, it had 16 operational Account Aggregators, 176 Financial Information Providers and 1,144 Financial Information Users. It has recorded over 566 million fulfilled consents and more than 338 million linked accounts, with lending its dominant use case.
The gap was widest in housing and property loans, where AA-enabled lenders recorded more than double the two-year portfolio growth of non-AA lenders. Sanctioned home loan value through AA channels grew 8.17x year-on-year, while two-wheeler loan value rose 3.82x.
AA-enabled lenders also onboarded more new-to-credit (NTC) borrowers. Their share was 28.5% in mid-ticket business loans, against 8.6% for non-AA lenders, and 9% in personal loans, against 3.8%. Greater exposure to the AA ecosystem was also linked with more lending to borrowers in Tier 3 and beyond markets, and to women, particularly in retail credit.
On asset quality, AA-enabled loans showed lower 90-day-plus delinquency rates in select categories. In two-wheeler loans, the rate was 0.5% against 5.3%. In personal loans, it was 2.0% against 2.2%.
Business loans remain an area to catch up. The report says this could change once GST records are integrated into the AA ecosystem.
The pincode-level analysis isolated the impact of AA from local economic activity. It found a positive influence on overall retail credit and economic growth. AA exposure was positively associated with lending across retail products, with the strongest growth in housing, personal and auto loans.
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Sachin Seth, regional managing director for India and South Asia at CRIF, said the framework is helping bridge information gaps that have long limited access to formal credit, particularly for NTC borrowers, small businesses and underserved segments. “We see strong evidence that trusted, real-time financial data can support better risk assessment, faster decision-making, and more inclusive credit growth,” he said. He added that AA could become “a foundational pillar of India’s digital credit infrastructure”.
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Shalini Gupta, chief policy and advocacy officer at Sahamati, said the next phase of credit growth will depend on how well lenders use reliable financial information to understand borrowers beyond traditional credit histories. The framework gives lenders verified data through consent, she said, while individuals keep control over their financial information. “The opportunity now is to deepen adoption, bring more data sources into the ecosystem and extend these benefits to underserved borrowers and small businesses,” she said.
The report says the findings show institutions can underwrite with greater confidence, calibrate risk better and extend credit to underserved borrowers. It adds that long-term monitoring remains important.
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