Financial Services - on the ONDC Network

Financial services,other than Banking and Payments, are severely underpenetrated in India. While the most affluent 100 million Indians are served well by the market, the remaining 1300 million are largely ignored.

There are 2 reasons for this:

The primary reason for this is financial services are usually provided via manual or phygital (physical + digital) processes. The introduction of manpower results in increased customer acquisition costs (and this is without accounting for marketing costs). In turn, increased costs result in larger minimum ticket sizes for it to make economic sense for a company to acquire that particular customer. It follows that larger ticket sizes exclude the 1300 million individuals who are not affluent.

The second reason is the lack of standard Application Programming Interfaces (API) and processes that make integration between product manufacturers and product distributors simple. Low-cost smartphones and data have resulted in Indians now transacting digitally to a very large degree (UPI is an example). However, bilateral negotiations between players of different sizes and market power end up in rigid (and usually inefficient) practices of larger players that impose a cost on smaller players. Not only is the cost of integration driven up by this environment but also smaller players are deprioritized even if they have better solutions than players that have already reached significant scale. The challenge with players who have reached scale is that they are unwilling and/or unable to be agile in order to create new products for underserved segments.

This is true in credit, investments, and insurance.

The aim is to create technology to democratize financial services in India. ONDC will do this by creating networks to help the low-cost distribution of financial products, driving network discipline in order to ensure an inclusive and fair marketplace and a technology environment that aids innovation in financial products in a controlled manner.

How to get started with Financial Services on the ONDC Network

• 1. Deck - here

• 2. Network Participant Profile Form - here

Network Participant Agreement

Procedure to sign the NP Agreement

• 1. Download the PDF of the NP Agreement from this Google Drive directory

• 2. E-sign the PDF using an e-signature with a valid Class 3 DSC or an e-sign provided by a certified authority notified by the CCA. While we do not have any specific mandates in terms of signature service providers, aadhar-based e-signs (e.g.: Digio, e-Mudhra, NSDL e-sign etc.) are easier for our tech team to validate, So we can process them faster.

• 3. Email the eSigned PDF to [email protected]

• 4. Following this the ONDC tech team will validate the e-sign and enter the Agreement into the ONDC Registry.

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There is no specific placeholder to place the eSign. You can put it on the first or last page or every page. All three are acceptable. Further, there is usually no need for an e-stamp, however this can vary from state to state and is dependent on the internal practices of the Network Participant. So you can choose to attach an e-stamp if you want, but ONDC does not mandate it.

Please note that the eSignature has to have a valid DSC. A signature simply inserted through a PDF editor, i.e. one that does not have a DSC, is not acceptable.

Please also note that only the NP Agreement has to be signed. The policy documents do not need to be signed

FAQ - Network Participants Agreement & Network Participants Agreement - Link

ONDC Network Policy - Link

Introduction to Financial Services on the ONDC Network

Discussions & Forums

Share your technical feedback or queries in GitHub - Link

Contact

Business Queries

For any business or product-specific queries, please reach out to us at [email protected]