New Delhi: Several digital lending apps met with ministry officials yesterday, February 8th, to discuss the issue with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) regarding the sudden ban.
If reports are to be believed, around 15 major digital lending companies met yesterday MeitY officials in Delhi. 30-minute slots were given to the companies to make individual representations, and there were group representations. At the meeting, the digital lending companies were strictly prohibited from sharing details outside the meeting room.
As per the reports, Google has received a list from MeitY and has yet to act on it. Earlier in the week, the tech giant is in touch with the ministry and seeking clarification before blocking the apps. The apps on the list were also notified by Google regarding their possible blocking soon. The MeitY officials said they would soon give some respite.
Reportedly, the govt has sought details such as the investor of the company, customer type, grievance redressal mechanism and data storage details.
Earlier, reports said that the government banned the apps for three key reasons: via investors’ potential links to China, complaints of harassment and strong-arm recovery tactics and data storage outside of India.
On February 7, the Finance Ministry told Rajya Sabha that MeitY would ensure only those digital lending apps were available on app stores operating in India which were on the whitelist of the Reserve Bank of India.
Till now, MeitY’ has banned 94 digital lending apps and 138 online betting apps in a crackdown on both fronts.
There is no clarity on which apps are getting banned, Shaktikanta Das, RBI Governor, told yesterday, “We have given a list of apps which work with Non-banking finance companies to the government. On that basis, the government has taken this step. RBI asked NBFC to share a list of apps they work with, adding that many illegal and illegitimate apps offer lending services.”
However, almost all of the digital lending apps said the links mentioned in the list led to mirror websites and clone apps and were unrelated to them.
