Nilekani calls for expanding account aggregator network to 50% of adults to support small businesses in AI era

In three years, India’s account aggregator network aims to connect over 50% of adults, as emphasized by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani. (Pic Credit: PTI)

MUMBAI: India should expand the account aggregator (AA) network to cover more than 50% of adults within the next three years and broaden the range of financial data available through it to help small businesses access credit and create jobs amid AI-led disruption, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani said on Thursday.Speaking at the Samvaad 2026 conference, Nilekani called for integrating new data sources, including income tax returns, provident fund contributions, small savings and FASTag records, over the next 12 to 24 months.A decade after RBI issued its initial master direction on account aggregators in Sept 2016, the ecosystem processes 10 lakh consents and 1.2 crore data transactions daily. However, its reach remains limited to a fifth of adults. “We have the whole everything in place now for deepening and broadening the use of AA and taking it up to 50% plus of adults. This will really be a big thing in the next 2-3 years,” Nilekani said.He said adoption must shift from institutions encouraging customers to use the system to consumers actively seeking it to secure better financial products. “Today it’s a push thing. It has to be a pull thing. Everybody should say, ‘I want to use the AA system to get my data to get a better loan or a better insurance policy or whatever.’”Nilekani said the expansion of small businesses could help offset job losses as AI automates service-sector work and robots take over manufacturing tasks. He argued that small enterprises, where employees handle multiple functions such as logistics, sales and stocking, could be more resilient to automation.Nilekani said small businesses could cushion AI-driven job losses. Enabling 10 million enterprises to hire five people each would create 50 million jobs, which he described as “AI-proof”. India’s startup ecosystem has grown from fewer than 10,000 entities in 2016 to over 150,000 and could reach 1 million by 2035, alongside an estimated 16 million micro-enterprises and GST-registered businesses.To widen credit access for small businesses, gig workers and street vendors, he proposed adding income tax returns, EPFO records, post office deposits, self-help group data, FASTag histories and BBPS utility records to the AA network over the next two years. Shared standards across RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA could accelerate integration. The expanded data pool could help lenders assess borrowers without conventional assets and enable health-finance data combinations for insurance.Nilekani said AAs should also support pensions, personal finance, insurance claims, CSR scholarship checks and visa verification. Welcoming RBI’s interoperability roadmap, he said connecting to one participant should provide access to all. Ecosystem players must develop sustainable fee models to compensate data providers and aggregators.