In September 2016, the RBI has proposed setting up of an Account Aggregator (AA) that would act as a common platform which enable easy sharing and consumption of data from various entities with user consent. The Account Aggregator will help individuals share their financial data with third parties in a safe and secure manner, and give them greater control over how their data is being used. In July 2019, the Account Aggregator and underlying consent layer API was unveiled as Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA). DEPA aims to democratize data access while enabling secure portability of trusted data between service providers.

>An Account Aggregator provides data to a Financial Information User (FIU) from a Financial Information Provider (FIP) based on the user’s explicit Electronic/Digital consent. No financial information of the user is retrieved, shared or transferred by the Account Aggregator without the explicit consent of the user. An AA merely act as conduit between FIUs and FIPs and does not process the data. An AA is ‘data-blind’ as the data that flows through an AA is encrypted and can be processed only by the FIU for whom the data is intended. Also, an AA does not and cannot store any user’s data - thus, the potential for leakage and misuse of user’s data is prevented.