Central government bans many lending apps including PayU’s LazyPay

The central government has banned many apps including PayU’s LazyPay, while tightening restrictions on lending apps. Earlier this week, the government had banned many lending apps. There were also apps from some Indian firms. The blocked apps include Fintech Kissht, Faircent and Indiabulls Home Loans.

After the notice from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, along with these apps, their websites have also been removed. LazyPay spokesperson said in a statement regarding this told, “Due to unavoidable circumstances, our website and app are not available through some Internet service providers. We are making every effort to resolve this issue.” Last month, the government had told the Parliament that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued an advisory to the state governments asking them to control unauthorized digital lending platforms and mobile apps.

Earlier this week, the central government had ordered to ban 138 betting and 94 lending apps related to China. This action was taken by the Electronics and Information Technology Ministry. According to reports, the government started scrutiny of many Chinese apps about six months ago. It was revealed that these apps have personal information of the people of the country.

Many complaints of illegal extortion and harassment of people were received against these apps. These apps give loans of small amounts to people and charge heavy interest on them. It has been said in the report that behind these apps are Chinese citizens who run their illegal business by making people from India as directors. After taking a loan from these apps, when people face difficulty in paying the interest on it, then people are harassed with threats like leaking their personal information. This matter came into limelight after cases of some people in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana committing suicide after taking loans from these apps or losing money on betting apps. States like Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha had requested the Home Ministry to take action against these apps. Last year, the government had asked Google to implement strict rules to stop the use of illegal lending apps.