In order to keep the internet safe and trusted for all, the government is planning to crack down on illegal loan apps available on Google Play Store and Apple Store. Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrashekhar on Saturday told news agency ANI that the government plans to make norms for only allowing permitted loan applications on these two stores.

The minister said this against the backdrop of rising fraud cases due to illegal loan apps.

Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar says, “Today both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store have many many applications that are used by the Indians. We are tracking one set of applications which are loan applications…We have issued an advisory to both Google and Apple that they must not onboard unsafe applications or illegal applications.”

He also said, “It is our government’s objective and mission to keep the internet safe and trusted for all ‘digital nagriks’…We intend to have the earliest meeting with the RBI to make sure there is a whitelisting that means to make a norm of only allowing permitted loan applications on these two stores.”

In August last year, the RBI also introduced the rules on digital lending. These were aimed at preventing illegal digital lending activities and amid concerns over business conduct and customer protection.

Among other steps, the RBI norms prohibited the automatic increase in credit limit without the explicit consent of borrowers. They also said digital lending entities and not the borrowers should pay fees or charges payable to lending service providers (LSPs) in the credit intermediation process.

All loan disbursals and repayments are required to be executed only between the bank accounts of borrower and the regulated entity without any passthrough/ pool account of the LSP or any third party, according to the norms.

In February this year also, the central bank issued frequently asked questions (FAQs) regarding the norms.