Multiple large banks, non-banking lenders, asset management firms and stock brokers are in the final stages of investing in Sahamati, a not-for-profit entity that powers the NBFC-Account Aggregators network, a consent-based financial data sharing system.
Large lenders like the State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Yes Bank are set to pick up anywhere between 7.5% to 8.5% stakes each in Sahamati, two people aware of the plans told ET.
Large tech-led stock brokers such as Zerodha, Dhan and Angel One have acquired around 8% stake each in the Bengaluru-based firm while wealth management startup Dezerv has acquired a 2% stake, they said.
“Sahamati is set to receive these funds from the large FIPs (financial information providers) and FIUs (financial information users), which means they will have a better grasp on the entire AA ecosystem, and they can work closely with the largest data processors,” one of the sources said.
FIPs are typically banks and wealth firms while FIUs include fintechs, digital lending startups, NBFCs and others.
The move to seek strategic stake acquisition in industry body Sahamati comes after the Reserve Bank of India in March last year issued a framework for setting up a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) framework for the NBFC-AA ecosystem.
Sahamati is best suited to assume that role, one of the people quoted above said.
Emailed queries to Sahamati went unanswered until press time on Monday. Banks and stock brokers named above also did not respond to ET’s queries.
The banking regulator prefers an SRO to have the widest base of members from across the industry. That explains Sahamati’s move to bring in players from across the ecosystem, experts said.
This mirrors a similar development around the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), where almost all the large banks and fintechs have taken up strategic stake and have become members of the network. NPCI runs digital payments networks like UPI, IMPS and RuPay.
Unlike NPCI, which runs the central node through which digital payments flow, Sahamati operates more like an advocacy engine. “Once they get recognised as an SRO, they will get regulated and will have a higher degree of control over the entire ecosystem,” the second person quoted above said.
Sahamati identifies itself as a member-driven industry alliance tasked with promoting the AA ecosystem in the country. The organisation, founded in 2019, has BG Mahesh as its chief executive officer and Ravi Vishwanath as its chief finance officer.
According to filings made with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the company closed FY25 with a total revenue of Rs 15 crore and turned a net surplus of Rs 1.1 crore. For a not-for-profit entity the amount left after squaring off expenses from the revenue is identified as surplus and not profit.
It recently appointed Suraj More, former senior partner at McKinsey and Company, prominent finance writer Monika Halan, ex-RBI governor R Gandhi, and Nandkumar Saravade, founder CEO of Reserve Bank Information Technology (ReBIT), onto its board of directors.
According to data from Sahamati, till October last year, around 15-20 million consent requests were fulfilled by the entire AA ecosystem.
Large lenders like the State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Yes Bank are set to pick up anywhere between 7.5% to 8.5% stakes each in Sahamati, two people aware of the plans told ET.
Large tech-led stock brokers such as Zerodha, Dhan and Angel One have acquired around 8% stake each in the Bengaluru-based firm while wealth management startup Dezerv has acquired a 2% stake, they said.
“Sahamati is set to receive these funds from the large FIPs (financial information providers) and FIUs (financial information users), which means they will have a better grasp on the entire AA ecosystem, and they can work closely with the largest data processors,” one of the sources said.
FIPs are typically banks and wealth firms while FIUs include fintechs, digital lending startups, NBFCs and others.
The move to seek strategic stake acquisition in industry body Sahamati comes after the Reserve Bank of India in March last year issued a framework for setting up a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) framework for the NBFC-AA ecosystem.
Sahamati is best suited to assume that role, one of the people quoted above said.
Emailed queries to Sahamati went unanswered until press time on Monday. Banks and stock brokers named above also did not respond to ET’s queries.
The banking regulator prefers an SRO to have the widest base of members from across the industry. That explains Sahamati’s move to bring in players from across the ecosystem, experts said.
This mirrors a similar development around the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), where almost all the large banks and fintechs have taken up strategic stake and have become members of the network. NPCI runs digital payments networks like UPI, IMPS and RuPay.
Unlike NPCI, which runs the central node through which digital payments flow, Sahamati operates more like an advocacy engine. “Once they get recognised as an SRO, they will get regulated and will have a higher degree of control over the entire ecosystem,” the second person quoted above said.
Sahamati identifies itself as a member-driven industry alliance tasked with promoting the AA ecosystem in the country. The organisation, founded in 2019, has BG Mahesh as its chief executive officer and Ravi Vishwanath as its chief finance officer.
According to filings made with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the company closed FY25 with a total revenue of Rs 15 crore and turned a net surplus of Rs 1.1 crore. For a not-for-profit entity the amount left after squaring off expenses from the revenue is identified as surplus and not profit.
It recently appointed Suraj More, former senior partner at McKinsey and Company, prominent finance writer Monika Halan, ex-RBI governor R Gandhi, and Nandkumar Saravade, founder CEO of Reserve Bank Information Technology (ReBIT), onto its board of directors.
According to data from Sahamati, till October last year, around 15-20 million consent requests were fulfilled by the entire AA ecosystem.