Update in Personal Loan Policy
For personal loan applications that subject customers to dishonest or dangerous financial products or services, Google will impose tough limits that will go into force on May 31. A revision to the tech giant’s “Personal Loans policy” will prevent access to user-confidential data.
The tech giant had stated that apps that offer personal loans or are primarily used to facilitate access to personal loans (i.e., lead generators or facilitators) are not permitted to read or access sensitive data, including contacts and photos. Other permissions that are restricted include access to media videos, fine location, contacts, and media images.
This regulation is applicable to apps that directly provide loans, generate leads, and put customers in touch with third-party lenders, according to Google.
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For India, it had advised personal loan apps to fill out the Personal Loan App Declaration for India and provide the necessary supporting documentation. For instance, if the business has a license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to offer personal loans, it must submit a copy of the license for review.
According to Google, “You will need to appropriately reflect this in the statement if you are not directly engaged in money lending activities and are just providing a platform to allow money lending by registered Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) or banks to customers. Additionally, the description of your app must prominently display the names of all registered NBFCs and banks.
“If your app contains or promotes financial products and services, you must comply with state and local regulations for any region or country that your app targets – for example, include specific disclosures required by local law,” stated Google.
The action followed a request made by the Indian government and central bank to the internet giant last year in 2022 to implement stricter controls to assist reduce the use of illicit digital lending applications in India, sources told Reuters.
Even though Google is beyond the purview of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the central bank and the Indian government have encouraged it to implement stricter checks and balances that would help weed out such apps on numerous occasions in the past few months. A Google representative stated that actions had been taken and that the Play Store had been cleared of more than 2,000 personal loan apps aimed at India due to violations of the Play policy.
