Nigerian Government Asks Google, Apple to Delete Loan Sharks From Stores, List Defaulting Apps

• The Nigerian government has asked Google and Apple to take down some loan sharks from their stores
• The Federal Competitions and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) said the loan apps ran foul of its regulations
• According to the agency, the apps violated consumer privacy and other banned apps banned secretly came back under different names

The Nigerian government, via the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), has asked Google and Apple to delete about four loan apps from their stores.

The FCCPC said the loan apps engaged in unethical practices against its laid down procedures.

List of apps to be deleted

The affected apps include Maxi Credit, Here4U, Chacha and SoftPay.

According to the regulator, findings showed that the listed apps are owned by other popular loan apps being investigated by the agency for unethical practices and breaches of consumer privacy.

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Soko Loan, which was deleted and sanctioned by the federal government secretly, came back under the guise of another one and circumvented the efforts of the Commission.

Nairametrics reports that the National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA) fined Soko Lending Company Limited N10 million for privacy breaches in August last year. The app was removed from the app stores afterwards at the request of the FCCPC.

FCCPC names biggest culprit

Babatunde Irukera, the Executive Chairman of FCCPC, said that information shows that Soko Lending Lending appears to be the most powerful digital money lender with multiple apps.

He said the company operates under different brand names, covering an enormous amount of the lending space and is one of the prime actors in violating consumer privacy.

He said the Commission would continue to monitor the app stores to see what apps hosted on them are doing and disable any offender, asking the public to provide the Commission with the information required to take the needed action.

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Google, others ignore FG’s directives, leaves Okash, KashKash, other loan sharks in stores

Legit.ng reported that it appears that the directive by the Nigerian government to Google, Apple and others to delete loan sharks raided by agencies of government last week from their stores has fallen on deaf ears.

Checks by Legit.ng show that the apps are still in the stores and having massive downloads over one million each.

According to an investigation, Okash, KashKash and CreditMe are owned and operated by the digital payment platform.

Source: Legit.ng