In response to a Right to Information (RTI) request, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) refused to share the whitelist of permitted digital lending apps (DLA) sent to Google Play Store and Apple App Store citing confidentiality, among other reasons. Earlier in February, the Ministry of Finance told the parliament that a whitelist of permitted digital lending apps has been given by the RBI to the IT Ministry, which in turn, has sent this list to app stores. With regard to this, we filed an RTI request with the RBI, asking it for a copy of the whitelist. The central bank responded by saying: "The information sought is a confidential correspondence from the Reserve Bank to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, public disclosure of which may prejudicially affect the economic interests of the State and accordingly is exempted from disclosure under section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act. Further, the information sought is exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act as the information is collated by RBI from the Regulated Entities in pursuant to an action point emanating from a meeting convened by Union Finance Minister on September 08, 2022, and the information is provided in the fiduciary capacity and not under any statutory mandate." MediaNama's Take: What is confidential here? We have no idea why RBI is considering this information "confidential" and something that will "affect the economic interests of the State." How will a whitelist of permitted lending apps affect the economic interests of the…
