India to launch platform for rural, small business lending, cenbank governor says

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India will launch a platform to transfer credit to small and rural borrowers, catering to the large unmet demand across various sectors, especially agricultural and small companies, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Monday.

The Unified Lending Interface (ULI), to be launched "in due course", will cut the time for credit appraisal for these borrowers and facilitate a consent-based flow of digital information, Shaktikanta Das said at an event.

The governor said the ULI platform is built to ensure digital access to information from diverse sources.

Das said the pilot was launched last year as part of the central bank's efforts to digitalise banking services, which has made India one of the fastest-growing digital payments markets globally.

These initiatives include digital wallets, mobile banking as well as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which allows users to transfer money between bank accounts using a mobile device.

"Just like UPI transformed the payments ecosystem, we expect that ULI will play a similar role in transforming the lending space in India," Das said.

(Reporting by Siddhi Nayak; Editing by Savio D'Souza)