What UFF actually does

Unified Fintech Forum UFF

Digital lending's second SRO-FT: born as DLAI, recognised 10 Sep 2026

The Unified Fintech Forum (formerly the Digital Lenders Association of India, founded 2016) became RBI's second fintech SRO on 10 September 2026. Its self-described remit spans the fintech stack — digital lending, payments, wealthtech, insurtech — with working groups under a governance council and a secretariat.

Governance architecture

  • Independent-dominated board: Alok Prasad (Chair) with ex-RBI Deputy Governor N S Vishwanathan, ex-RBI ED Meena Hemchandra, ex-SBI Deputy MD Dhananjay Tambe, ex-SIDBI CMD Mohammad Mustafa and others alongside founder-member promoters (Indifi, Freo, Axio, Lendingkart)
  • Governance Council, committees, working groups, and a Code-of-Conduct sub-committee under its published governance philosophy
  • Professional secretariat; executive committee drawn from member CEOs

Client protection work

  • Voluntary Code of Conduct for digital lenders — developed pre-SRO as a market benchmark that fed into the RBI's digital lending framework
  • Capacity building and collaborations on predatory lending, harassment and fraud concerns
  • Public trust positioning: consumer research and fair-recovery / collections norms advocacy

Policy & consultation engagement

  • Position papers and consultation responses to RBI, Ministry of Finance, MeitY and NITI Aayog
  • Roundtables with policymakers; the association advocated for the SRO-FT framework it now operates under
  • Publications: whitepapers and industry reports via its publications portal

Gaps & open questions

  • The UFF Code of Conduct text is not published as a downloadable PDF on its site
  • No published member disciplinary/enforcement log yet (SRO licence granted 10 Sep 2026 — early days)
  • Member counts claimed in press (~200+) vs the site's own member wall (121 listed) — treat roster as directional

Sources

Captured 2026-09-10–11 from UFF’s own site. Deep-dive under methodology · ← register entry