Data collaterals now replacing physical collaterals against loans: Nilekani

Over 40 percent of Indians now use digital formats; some of these people don’t even have a smart phone

India is the most data-empowered country in the world as it already has one billion people and 20 billion businesses that can use their own data, said Nandan Nilekani, chairman and co-founder of Infosys and Founding Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India.

Historically, he said, collateral for the loans has been physical assets. But for the first time, people in this country were able to use digital footprints as assets for the purpose of lending.

“It is called information collateral to avail loans. Employees can avail of loans by submitting digital footprints on their salary and spending and small business on their transactions,’’ Nilekani said in his keynote at The India Advantage Summit 2022, an event held here September 14, Wednesday.

Over 40 per cent of Indians use digital formats today thanks to various digitisation initiatives of the country. Some 260 million people are using UPI and another 150 million people use Aadhaar-enabled payment system to withdraw money from their bank accounts, he said.

“So over 400 million people are using the digital mode to withdraw money from their accounts. That means some 40 to 45 percent of Indians are using digital formats. It was zero percent 10 years ago. It is a dramatic shift in consumer behaviour and consumer usage which has become very powerful,’‘ he added.

Emphasising the all-pervasiveness of digital format, he said, “So if you think about it, by and large, the people who use Aadhaar-enabled payment systems are not generally people who are on smart phones.’‘

Digital technology has made the Unified Payments Interface system of payments ubiquitous in the country and thereby hugely impacting transformation, he noted.