PNB on-boards account aggregation platform to help digitally access files

Punjab National Bank (PNB) has on-boarded Account Aggregator (AA) platform to help customers digitally access and share information from one financial institution to other regulated such entities.

The AA system helps banks leverage data acquired digitally through customers' consent. It thus eliminates the need for physical documentation furnishing by a customer for other financial usages.

Punjab National Bank is the second public sector lender to go live in the ecosystem, acting as Financial Information User (FIU) and Financial Information Provider (FIP), the bank said on Thursday.

An FIU can request data from the FIP based on a simple consent given by the customers on their Account Aggregator handle.

Before this, Union Bank of India onboarded the AA ecosystem in May this year.

The Account Aggregator Ecosystem went live in September 2021 and it has been seeing active participation from private and public sector banks.

"Punjab National Bank is working on multiple business use cases, which can leverage the AA ecosystem and offer interesting products to its customers. This will further enhance the outreach of the bank to provide customised digital products to its customers," Atul Kumar Goel, MD and CEO of PNB, said.

PNB said it has also launched pre-approved personal loans in 4 clicks and a single OTP through its mobile banking app PNB One.

The lender said it has been the first public sector bank to provide a loan repayment facility through Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS).

An Account Aggregator (AA) 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.