Google is acting like a ‘super-regulator’ says Indian fintech lenders

Google reviewed hundreds of money loan apps from its online Play Store in India, and immediately removed those who were found breaching user safety policies from the Play Store. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had ordered Google to take them off the app store.

Earlier, Google had said Play Store would only allow personal loan apps that demand borrowers to repay loans after 60 days or more, adding that its policies need instant loan apps to disclose the minimum and maximum periods of repayment, the maximum annual percentage rate, and a representative example of the total loan cost.

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Indian fintech lenders seemed unhappy with the internet giant’s latest directives to provide credentials, and they have written to the Google mentioning the names of Chinese apps that have a week to 14-day products while its rules of not allowing lenders giving short-tenure loans of less than 60 days. Digital lending companies believe Google is acting like a super-regulator, seeking details that even the banking regulator does not ask for.

“We have written to Google on the need for uniform regulations among fintech players, Google says you can’t have a lending product which is less than 60 days while all these apps had 7-14 day products,” a member of FACE (Fintech Association for Customer Empowerment), told ET.

The member, on the condition of anonymity, further stated that a majority of these apps are China-led companies. “We have approached Google on why these China-led apps are allowed to run while we have such restrictions. We have also written to Google with names of these Chinese-led companies,” the financial daily quoted him as saying.