Government has blocked 27 illegal lending apps
A Reserve Bank of India (RBI) working group has found about 600 illegal lending apps, while the government has blocked 27 such apps.
Interestingly, the RBI working group discovered these illegal apps in a short span of just two months, i.e. between January 1, 2021 and February 28, 2021.
At the same time, between January 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, the RBI received as many as 2,562 complaints against such digital lending apps.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has blocked 27 illegal loan lending apps under the provisions of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information for Public) Rules, 2009 notified under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Of the 2,562 complaints received against digital loan app fraud, the maximum 572 complaints were received from Maharashtra, followed by Karnataka (394), Delhi (352) and Haryana (314).
These complaints were received on RBI’s “Sachet” portal, which was set up by the central bank under the State Level Coordination Committee’s mechanism for registering complaints from the public against such unregistered entities.
As a preventive mechanism, the RBI is warning the general public not to fall prey to unscrupulous activities by unauthorized digital lending platforms or mobile apps. It advises people to verify antecedents of companies offering such loans.
States are also advised by the RBI to monitor such unauthorized digital lending platforms through their respective law enforcement agencies.
