MANU/RPRL/0077/2016

Ministry : Reserve Bank of India

Department/Board : RBI

Press Release No. : 2015-2016/2077

Date : 03.03.2016

RBI floats Draft Regulatory Framework for Account Aggregator Companies to facilitate Consolidated Viewing of Financial Assets Holdings

The Reserve Bank of India has released on its website today, a draft of the directions (Non-Banking Financial Company - Account Aggregator (Reserve Bank) Directions, 2016) to put in place the regulatory framework to allow a new kind of Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), which could act as an account aggregator.

Why Account Aggregator?

At present, persons holding financial assets, such as, savings bank deposits, fixed deposits, mutual funds, insurance policies, do not get a consolidated view of their financial asset holdings, especially when the entities fall under the purview of different financial sector regulators. Account Aggregators would fill this gap by collecting and providing the information of customers' financial assets in a consolidated, organised and retrievable manner to the customer or any other person as per the instructions of the customer. The investors will be able to avail the service of an Account Aggregator purely at their option.

The Reserve Bank will regulate and supervise the activity of account aggregation with a view to ensuring that the services provided and the terms at which these are provided conform to prescribed standards.

According to the draft directions:

* Only companies registered with the Reserve Bank as NBFC - AA will be able to undertake the business of an account aggregator.

* Entities being regulated by other financial sector regulators and aggregating only those accounts relating to the financial assets of that particular sector will not need to register with the Reserve Bank.

* The Net Owned Fund of such companies should not be less than ` 2 crore.

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