Applying for a home loan or other financial products in India may have become increasingly digital, but consumers still often find themselves dealing with a familiar burden: paperwork.
Customers are routinely asked to download months of bank statements, collect investment records, locate insurance documents and upload financial information that already exists digitally with banks and other regulated institutions. The same process can be repeated when applying for another loan, opening an investment account or accessing a different financial service.
Chennai-based fintech Saafe is looking to change how this financial information is accessed and shared through India’s Account Aggregator (AA) framework.
Founded in 2021 by Venkatesh Krishnamoorti, a Chartered Accountant who has held leadership positions at Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company and Cognizant, Saafe is backed by Groww and operates an RBI-licensed Account Aggregator while also developing technology solutions for financial institutions.
Krishnamoorti’s experience across the financial services ecosystem exposed him to a recurring challenge: financial institutions often operate with fragmented customer information, while consumers repeatedly provide data that already exists with other regulated entities.
Building on India’s Account Aggregator Framework
At its core, an Account Aggregator enables financial information to be transferred securely between regulated institutions after receiving the customer’s explicit consent.
For example, instead of downloading a bank statement and emailing or uploading it to a lender, a customer can authorise the lender to access the required information directly from the bank through the Account Aggregator ecosystem.
A key feature of the framework is that the Account Aggregator does not store or use the customer’s financial information. Customers determine what information is shared, which institution receives it, the purpose for which it can be used and the duration of access.
They can also withdraw their consent when access is no longer required.
This consent-based architecture puts data privacy, security and customer control at the centre of financial data sharing.
SAAFE Brings Financial Information Into One View
Saafe’s consumer application, SAAFE, available on both Android and iOS, brings these capabilities into a single interface.
The app enables users to view their financial relationships and balances across supported asset categories while also monitoring and managing the permissions they have granted to financial institutions.
Rather than logging into multiple platforms to understand their financial position, users can access a consolidated view while retaining control over how their financial information is shared.
Saafe 360 Targets Financial Institutions
Saafe is also building infrastructure for financial institutions through Saafe 360.
The platform is designed for banks, NBFCs, insurers, asset management companies, stockbrokers and fintech companies that can use consented financial information across use cases such as customer onboarding, credit underwriting, portfolio monitoring and fraud detection.
Access to verified financial information directly from the source can reduce institutions’ dependence on manually uploaded documents and potentially enable faster and more informed financial decisions.
16 Million User Handles and 240+ FIU Clients
Saafe has crossed 16 million user handles and works with more than 240 Financial Information User (FIU) clients, placing the company among the notable players building infrastructure around India’s Account Aggregator ecosystem.
The company’s proposition comes at a time when India’s financial services infrastructure has undergone rapid digitisation across identity, payments and documentation.
However, the Account Aggregator framework takes a different approach by focusing on making financial information portable while keeping control with the individual.
For Saafe, the opportunity extends beyond simply making financial data move faster. The startup is betting on an ecosystem where financial information can be shared securely, used more efficiently by institutions and, importantly, remain under the control of the customer.
As Account Aggregator adoption continues to expand across India’s financial ecosystem, Saafe is positioning itself at the intersection of fintech, data privacy, consent-based data sharing and digital financial infrastructure.
By: Arushi Agarwal
