The Reserve Bank of India is preparing to crack down on illegal loan apps on the App Store. For this, RBI will prepare a white list of instant finance apps. Only loan apps included in this list will be allowed to be hosted on Play Store and Apple Store. That is, now only RBI-approved apps will be available on the Play Store.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting on Friday chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on issues related to illegal loan apps. The Finance Ministry said that this 'white list will be prepared by the RBI and after that, the IT ministry will ensure that only who-listed lending apps are hosted on the App Store.
Finance Ministry worried: Nirmala Sitharaman expressed concern over the increasing cases of illegal loan apps and said, money laundering, tax evasion, data breach, and privacy are being violated through them. He also expressed the possibility of misuse of unregulated payment aggregators, shell companies, dormant NBFCs, etc.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also stated that "the chances of money laundering, tax evasions, privacy data leak or the breach, and misuse of unregulated payment aggregators, defunct NBFCs, shell companies, etc. committing such actions," according to the report.
After discussing the legal, technical, and procedural aspects of illegal loan applications, FM Sitharaman highlighted several points to prevent the operations of such lenders.
These points include:
· Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman raise the issue regarding the illegal loan applications and asked RBI to prepare a ‘White List’ of such apps.
· RBI will also "keep their eyes on the 'mule/rented' accounts that may be used for money laundering and to examine or cancel dormant non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to neglect their misuse."
· According to the statement, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) would identify and de-register shell corporations to avoid their exploitation.
