Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. The government has taken an important step with the aim of cracking down on the increasing number of illegal loan apps in the country and frauds taking place through it. In the meeting chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Central Reserve Bank has been asked to prepare a list. While the Reserve Bank will prepare a list of valid loan apps, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will ensure the availability of only the apps available in the list on the app stores.

(RBI) will prepare a whitelist

An official privy with the development, said, "In a bid to crack down illegal loan apps outside the regular banking channels, Reserve Bank of India will prepare a whitelist of all the legal apps and Ministry of Electronics & Information technology will ensure that only these listed apps are hosted on App Stores.

No control on online loan apps

Notably, most of the online lending apps are not registered with the central bank and are self-operated. There are increasing cases of alleged suicides of borrowers due to harassment by some operators of digital lending apps. RBI will also monitor the accounts that can be used for money laundering and review/cancel dormant NBFCs to avoid their misuse. The central bank will also ensure that the registration of payment aggregators is completed within a time limit and after that no un-registered payment aggregators are allowed to function.

MCA to identify and deregister shell companies

As part of measures to check the spread of such illegal apps, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) will identify and deregister shell companies to prevent their misuse. In addition, steps will be taken to increase cyber awareness among customers, bank employees, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders about these apps. All ministries or agencies have been asked to take all possible action to stop the operation of such apps.