In a bid to facilitate cash flow-based lending to MSMEs, RBI has announced that it will include the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) as a Financial Information Provider (FIP) under the Account Aggregator (AA) framework. As per the RBI, the Department of Revenue will be the regulator of GSTN for this specific purpose and Goods and Services Tax (GST) Returns, viz. Form GSTR-1 and Form GSTR-3B, shall be the Financial Information.
RBI has, till now, issued licenses to six Account Aggregators, with nine more having in-principal approval. Stock market regulator, SEBI had also joined the AA network earlier this year. The list of FIPs include banks, non-banking financial companies, asset management companies, depository, depository participants, insurance companies, and pension funds
An Account Aggregator is a type of RBI regulated entity (with an NBFC-AA license) that helps an individual securely and digitally access and share information from one financial institution they have an account with to any other regulated financial institution in the AA network. Data cannot be shared without the consent of the individual.
