Google to stop loan apps from accessing user contacts and media from May 31st

Image: Times of India

If you are one of the people that have wailed and suffered at the hands of loan apps otherwise called 'loan sharks' over sharing your sensitive information with contacts, then this piece of information would interest you.

Several times and over, many of these load apps in a bid to go after a defaulting user, would send defaming information to all the contacts of the user. They are usually notorious and abusive at it. They would accuse the user of being a criminal and has taken monies belonging to their company.

Now, Google has announced plans to restrict those loan apps on its Play Store from accessing sensitive user data such as photos, videos, and contacts. The update, which was pushed to the Personal Loans Policy yesterday, will take effect from May 31st. 

“Apps that provide personal loans, or have the primary purpose of facilitating access to personal loans (i.e., lead generators or facilitators), are prohibited from accessing sensitive data, such as photos and contacts,” the company said in its update.

This move is in response to the growing concerns about predatory lending practices adopted by loan apps globally. In Africa—especially Nigeria and Kenya—these (mostly unregulated) lenders, adopt debt-shaming and unethical data-sharing practices to torture their customers into repayment. 

The proliferation of bad actors in these countries gave way to the strict regulatory oversight that followed. Now, Kenya’s central bank and Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) are gradually overhauling the industry, one licence at a time. Google is also privy to these changes, allowing only the licenced apps to remain on its platform

Google has been described in recent times as a pseudo-regulator of African digital credit providers. This move adds another regulatory stroke that will further manage the operators in the space, and hopefully, deal a fatal blow to predatory lending in Africa

Source: techcabal.com

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#Loan App

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