According to the recent estimate by the Reserve Bank of India, over 1,100 online loaning apps are available in India on various internet platforms. Surprisingly, over 600 of these apps are for Android users in India, which were utterly unlawful, and they were distributed across over 80 app stores.
The Telangana police Friday stated that at least 60 such loan applications available on the Google Play Store are not recognised or registered by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as an NBFC, and their operations were unlawful.
The response from the Telangana police comes in the incident of a jobless techie’s death by suicide in Hyderabad, and an agriculture extension officer’s in Siddipet district in the last few days allegedly owing to humiliation and harassment over repayment.
Taking a severe concern of various smartphone app companies that offer instant loans, the Telangana police Friday stated that there is a minimum of 60 such loan applications available on the Google Play Store which are not recognised or registered by the Reserve Bank of India as an NBFC and their operations were unlawful.
The DGP’s office said that these apps violated users’ privacy in a statement. “All the apps have an uncanny process in their methods. They appear to be made upon one SDK, which is assumed to be provided by a foreign country.
Their actions of calling up relatives and friends of the victims are violative of Rule 3(2) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) and Rules 2011 as well,” it said, making the public report to police any harassment by these apps.
While investigating the death by suicide case of techie P Sunil (29) at his residence in Kismatpur on December 16, due to blackmailing and threatening by the members of instant loan mobile app companies, the Rajendranagar police found out that Sunil had taken nearly Rs 2 lakh as loan from several instant loan apps.
The representatives of the apps had threatened and blackmailed him by contacting his wife and father, declared him a defaulter, and blackmailed to make the repayment, police found.
The police investigated the case registered initially by adding sections 306 (abetment of suicide), 420 (cheating),504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), section 67 of the IT Act and 506(criminal intimidation) of IPC.
Some of the apps Sunil had used for taking instant loans are 1) In Cash 2). Cash lion 3) Cash era 4) Mastermelon 5) Lucky wallet 6) Rupee Pus 7) Coco cash 8) Indian Loan 9) Credit Day 10) Credit finch 11) Tap credit 12) Ratheon loan 13) Cash port 14) Smile Loan 15) Cash today
16) Lucky Rupee 17) Go Cash 18) Snapit Loan 19) Quick Cash 20) panda rupees 21) Play cash 22) Dhani 23) Lazy Pay 24) Loan Tap 25) IPPB Mobile 26) Micredit 27) Quick Credit 28) Cashon 29) Rupees Plus 30) Rupee Now 31) Elephant Loan 32) Loan Zone 33) Ant cash 34) Quick Money and 35) Alp Cash.
Apart from Sunil’s case, Telangana police are currently investigating the death by suicide cases of Kirni Mounika in Siddipet and Eddu Srawan Yadav in Narsapur, both due to alleged harassment caused by money lending apps.
The RBI has said that any non-banking financial companies not registered under the law are not legal tender. On Friday, it said that under Section 45-1A of the RBI Act 1934, any non-banking financial companies could operate under regulations only after proper registration.
On the use of such apps, it is noticed that the interest rates on loans offered through such apps are up to 1 per cent per day and are generally higher than the interest rates of the banks or NBFC registered companies.
“If the borrowers do not repay the amount on time, the interest will be doubled or tripled. These apps threaten to repay non-performing borrowers and commit online harassment,” it said.
