Put each risk with whoever knows it best.
FromWho holds the capital→ToWho is best placed to bear each risk
Capital usually arrives from whoever has it, in whatever shape they offer. The people who understand a risk best are often someone else. This shift asks whether providers could declare which risks they will carry, so that each risk can find its best-placed bearer.
Five participants, five kinds of knowledge
Meera knows whether the product works illustrative. Arjun knows whether millet snacks move in his district: which retailers ask for them, what price works, how festivals change demand. Farida knows how full her node runs. A trade-finance provider specialises in whether confirmed orders settle. A bank holds diversified, standard exposures at scale.
Five participants, one transaction, each closest to a different risk.
Match the risk to the one who knows it
Who has capital to deploy
Who understands each risk best
| Today | On an open network |
|---|---|
| Capital looking for a use | Each risk looking for its best-placed bearer |
| One lender carrying the whole journey | Each risk with whoever is closest to it |
| Appetite described by product | Appetite declared by role and stage |
Good capital isn’t only cheap. It is close to the risk.
How it would work
Risk-appetite discovery. Finance providers and risk-bearing participants say, on the network, which risks they will carry, at which stage and on what terms. They can be found the way goods and services are.
A match rests on four advantages:
- Information: who sees the risk first.
- Control: who can act on it.
- Incentives: who gains or loses.
- Balance sheet: who can absorb it.
Go deeper
What already exists
Matching lenders to demand through standard interfaces is already being built. OCEN offered a standard set of APIs so that any service provider with a user interface could plug in lending, and lenders could reach those providers’ customers[1]. The Unified Lending Interface, which the Reserve Bank calls a universal API gateway for the loan lifecycle, had 64 lenders and more than 136 data services by December 2025[2]. Risk-sharing exists too. The credit guarantee trust for micro and small enterprises guarantees collateral-free credit that lenders extend, and does not lend itself[3]. Co-lending lets two regulated lenders share a loan, each keeping at least 10 per cent[4]. This shift applies those ideas to the risks inside a brand’s journey.
Scope. We haven’t tested whether declaring appetite by role and stage would change who lends, and we don’t know how OCEN or the Unified Lending Interface would treat a risk-bearer that isn’t a lender, such as a stockist.
Rules
Putting a risk with a participant is a regulated act when it takes the form of credit or a guarantee. Under the Reserve Bank’s digital-lending rules, default-loss guarantee cover is capped at 5 per cent of the amount disbursed from the portfolio, must come from a company and must be held as cash, a lien-marked fixed deposit or a bank guarantee[5]. Whether a participant’s commitment is a purchase or a guarantee decides which rules apply, so we would keep a stockist’s commitment as a purchase (Shift 6).
Getting it right
Keep some of the bearer’s own money at stake. Someone close to a risk can also be too close to see it clearly.
Keep accountability across handoffs. Whoever carries a risk answers for it, and the record shows who that is.
Let providers decline. A provider that doesn’t understand a risk shouldn’t be matched to it.
Who it helps. Each provider funds what it understands. Meera and Arjun find capital that fits their stage instead of one blunt instrument, and the bank sees only the exposures built for it.
What could go wrong
- Closeness that breeds overconfidence.A stockist who knows the district may back too much, so each commitment is sized and checked (Shift 6).
- Coordination that eats the gain.If placing risks costs more than it saves, one lender is simpler, so the pilot counts the cost.
- Cherry-picking.Bearers may take the easy risks and leave the rest, so the pilot watches what goes unplaced.
- Gaps in accountability at handoff.Each placement names who answers for what.
How we’d test it
In one corridor, run the same set of exposures two ways: placed with best-placed bearers, and held by a single lender as the comparison.
- The test
- Placed against held
- What we would measure
- Count losses, recoveries and the extra coordination cost for each. Widen the set of bearers only if the placed group does better after that cost.
- What would end the idea
- Exposures placed with best-placed bearers show no lower losses or better recovery than the comparison, or coordination costs cancel the gain.
Sources
- [1]iSPIRT ProductNation, Developer community for OCEN (2020)Checked; an early description from OCEN’s originators
- [2]MediaNama, ULI Now Live With 64 Lenders, 136 Data Services (5 January 2026), reporting the Reserve Bank’s Trend and Progress of Banking in IndiaChecked; a news report of Reserve Bank figures as of 12 December 2025
- [3]Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises, CGTMSEChecked; the Trust’s own site
- [4]Reserve Bank of India, Reserve Bank of India (Co-Lending Arrangements) Directions, 2025 (RBI/DOR/2025-26/139, 6 August 2025), paragraph 10Checked; the Reserve Bank’s text
- [5]Reserve Bank of India, Reserve Bank of India (Digital Lending) Directions, 2025 (RBI/2025-26/36, 8 May 2025), paragraphs 18, 22 and 23Checked; the Reserve Bank’s text
Spotted a source we missed or a rule we misread? Tell us what we got wrong.
To place a risk with a participant, the network first has to know what that participant can do.