SAHAMATI PIONEERS OPEN FINANCE RESEARCH WITH SAHAMATI LABS

Unveils Aikya – A Collaborative AI powered Program to Transform Financial Data Sharing

26th March 2025, India: Sahamati Foundation (Sahamati), the market-led industry alliance for the account aggregator (AA) ecosystem today announced the launch of Sahamati Labs, a first-of-its-kind research and innovation hub, aimed at accelerating Open Finance adoption. This collaborative space will bring together financial institutions, fintechs, researchers, and policymakers to develop cutting-edge solutions in AI, privacy-focused financial data sharing, and global interoperability.

As the first initiative from Sahamati Labs, Aikya(ऐक्य), meaning “oneness” in Sanskrit, is a collaborative AI program that strengthens financial decision-making, fraud prevention, and risk evaluation in the Open Finance landscape. By embedding AI intelligence into data-sharing frameworks, Aikya ensures institutions maintain robust security, efficiency and building resilience in the evolving digital landscape.

Sahamati Labs: Pioneering Open Finance Innovation/A Catalyst for Open Finance Adoption

As Open Finance rapidly evolves, Sahamati Labs emerges as a catalyst for innovation, addressing critical challenges within the ecosystem. The lab will focus on:

• Advancing AI-Driven Intelligence: Building cutting-edge AI models, exemplified by Aikya, to scale fraud detection, risk assessment, and financial decision-making.
• Enhancing Privacy and Security: Implementing Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) like Confidential Computing, Multi-Party Computation (MPC), and Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to establish robust, privacy-preserving financial data-sharing frameworks.
• Accelerating Adoption Through Research & Engagement: Disseminating insights through reports such as GOFAR (Global Open Finance Adoption Report) and GOFAIR (Global Open Finance AI Adoption Report), and fostering collaboration through webinars, industry roundtables, and joint research initiatives.
• Driving Interoperability: Crafting frameworks for secure, consent-based data-sharing, aligning with regulatory standards and exploring cross-border operability, when permissible.

”Sahamati Labs advances our vision for trusted, innovative Open Finance in India. As financial data-sharing evolves, our focus remains on building a secure, intelligent, and privacy-first ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders—institutions, fintechs, and consumers alike. Aikya, our inaugural AI initiative, will pave the way for AI-driven financial intelligence, enhancing security and interoperability on a global scale.” said BG Mahesh, Chief Executive Officer, Sahamati, while commenting on the launch.

Aikya(ऐक्य): Shaping the AI-Powered Future of Open Finance

Aikya, Sahamati Labs’ inaugural project, is designed to future-proof Open Finance ecosystems by mitigating technological obsolescence, enhancing fraud detection, and enabling  AI-driven intelligence at ecosystem scale. Financial institutions and fintechs can leverage Aikya to:

• Strengthen Fraud Detection and Security: Identify patterns and anomalies in financial transactions.
• Enable Seamless Data and Model Portability/Migration Across AI Agents and Language Models: Optimize AI performance and adaptability across the ecosystem protecting the ecosystem against technological obsolescence and vendor lock-ins.

Kiran Gopinath, Chief Innovation Officer, Sahamati further added ”At Sahamati Labs, we’re not just building tools—we are building the future of Open Finance. With Aikya, our collaborative AI program, we are enabling ecosystems to tackle shared challenges together. Aikya ushers in a new era of intelligent interoperability, empowering institutions to operate with greater resilience, agility, and trust in an AI-driven world.”

Sahamati Labs is poised to drive the future of intelligent, privacy-first, and globally connected Open Finance solutions, with Aikya marking the first of many transformative initiatives.