Illegal loan apps: RBI to prepare 'whitelist' of legal loan apps

New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India announced that it would prepare a 'whitelist' of all legal apps, while the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will ensure that those included in the list will be hosted by app stores, IANS reported.

A high-level meeting on Thursday, chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on issues related to legal loan apps took the decision. The meeting was attended by the Finance Secretary, Economic Affairs Secretary, Banking Secretary, and Secretaries from ministries like corporate affairs and IT.

The meeting resolved that the RBI would monitor the 'mule or rented' accounts that could be used for money laundering. It will cancel dormant non-bank finance institutions or NBFCs to avoid their misuse, IANS reports citing officials' accounts. Further, the central bank will ensure that the registration of payment aggregators is completed within a timeframe, while no unregistered payment aggregator be functioning after that.

The meeting directed the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to identify shell companies and de-register them to prevent misuse.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Sitharaman expressed concern over surging incidents of illegal loan apps offering loans mostly to vulnerable sections of society, offering high-interest rates and then using intimidatory tactics to recover the amount. She also underlines that there could be possible money laundering, tax evasion and data breaches by the aggregators.

Sitharaman asked the officials to take measures to step up cyber awareness for customers, bank employees, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders.