Keshav Reddy’s Equal Invests In Account Aggregator Platform OneMoney

GVK Group’s Keshav Reddy-founded ID-sharing platform Equal has made a strategic investment in the account aggregator platform OneMoney. 

However, the company did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Following the investment, OneMoney and Equal are expected to jointly enable over 55 Mn monthly transactions and a 97% success rate in KYC processing for more than 250 BFSI clients nationally, the companies said in a joint statement.

“This partnership will allow OneMoney and Equal to innovate responsibly for the BFSI sector and create solutions that are rooted in consent-first, privacy-focused financial data sharing, governance and analysis,” said Equal’s founder Reddy.

“Our shared vision is to strengthen data democracy through digitally empowering citizens and MSMEs by enabling them to get cost-effective credit and other financial products,” he said.

Besides being the scion of the GVK Group, Reddy has been a venture capitalist where he led investments in more than 30 high-growth technology companies, including unicorns like CRED, Upstox and Hive among others. Equal, cofounded by Reddy and Rajeev Ranjan, is a consent-first and privacy-focused platform for Indians to securely share IDs with enterprises.

On the other hand, the 2016-founded OneMoney claims to be India’s first and largest account aggregator, which is licenced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). 

An account aggregator (AA) is a non-bank finance company (NBFC) engaged in the business of providing the service of retrieving or collecting financial information pertaining to the customer. The framework allows customers to share information with their financial service providers more seamlessly.

Founder of OneMoney, Krishna Prasad, said that the collaboration aligns with the company’s shared vision to serve the “underserved”, enhance financial data security and democratise financial products in India. 

“We believe that by combining our technologies and expertise, we can drive the next generation of responsible financial innovation,” Prasad added.

As per a recent report, the total number of successful consents on the AA framework crossed 100 Mn as of August 15, 2024. It also said that 80-90 Mn people are using AA, which translates to 8% of the adult population of India.