Fragmented financial information creates both consumer harm and unclaimed wealth. Critically evaluate RBI's 2026 measures on AA interoperability and on bank deposits in the Consolidated Account Statement.

RBI's 2016 Account Aggregator (AA) framework was meant to bring a person's financial data together on the basis of consent [2]. In practice the data is still split across about 15 AAs, banks and depositories [1]. RBI's October 2026 measures address this fragmentation, but they solve only part of the problem.

Harms of fragmentation

• Consumer harm: nobody has a single view of their assets, so advice and credit decisions rest on partial data [1].
• Unclaimed wealth: a deposit left untouched for 10 years moves to RBI's DEA Fund. Heirs often don't know the account exists [3].

Strengths

• Interoperability by 31 December 2026 creates a consolidated asset view [1], using the same networked approach as UPI in India's digital public infrastructure.
• Better-informed advice: asset managers, investment advisers and insurance brokers can use the data, but only with the customer's consent [1].
• Deposits in the CAS: the CAS issued by SEBI-regulated depositories leaves out bank deposits, which is "a significant gap" [1]. Adding them helps families trace deposits after a holder dies, before the money goes dormant.
• RBI–SEBI coordination is a step towards a single financial data architecture [1].

Limitations

• Weak consent: one blanket consent could now unlock a person's entire asset picture. Encryption protects the AA pipeline. It does not stop misuse by the data recipient, who may also be selling products.
• Narrow reach: the CAS only reaches people who invest through depositories. Households with forgotten savings accounts but no demat account are left out.
• Phased rollout: only banks already onboarded come first [1], so a CAS may show some of a person's deposits but not all.
• Old balances untouched: UDGAM only finds unclaimed deposits; claims still have to be made bank by bank [3]. The CAS stops new dormancy but does not reduce the existing DEA Fund balance.

Way forward

• Separate consent for each purpose, in line with the DPDP Act, 2023's purpose-limitation and consent-manager provisions [4].
• Link CAS data with UDGAM so that long-inactive deposits are flagged before they reach the 10-year mark [3].
• Publish the list of onboarded banks with a deadline for the rest, and regularly report what AA consents are used for.

Overall, the measures rightly treat consumer harm and unclaimed wealth as one problem: people cannot see all their money. Purpose-bound consent and wider reach to households would make interoperability a true public good. That would serve the Article 21 right to privacy and the goal of financial inclusion under SDG 8.10.