The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) working group in digital lending has approached Google, fintech lenders and non-bank lenders to submit their inputs on how best to regulate digital lending apps, the Economic Times reported. The central bank has sought information from Google on its policies for on-boarding lending apps on the Play Store and a review of apps that it banned from the Android app store from January onward, the report said. Google has banned more than 400 digital lending apps from its app store over the past few months, after complaints of harassment by purported employees of these apps emerged, it added. The report said that the Fintech Associate for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) and the Digital Lenders Association of India (DLAI) have already submitted their inputs to the working group, suggesting that the regulator introduce industry-wide code of conduct and give approval to set up a self-regulatory organisation for the entire ecosystem. Further, the digital lenders have also recommend that all credit products should be guided by common standards so that loopholes exploited by fake lending apps can be plugged. They also suggested that the regulatory mandate disclosures by digital lenders on all charges payable by the borrowers, the report added. A little background Over the last year, a number of unauthorised digital lending apps popped up on Google's Play Store. But since these apps are not regulated or licensed they charge exorbitant fees and interest rates, and resort to extortion and blackmail tactics to collect payments from…
