The lack of strict regulatory norms and near-inability of the police in tracking down rogue recovery agents have led to an explosion of instant loan mobile applications over the past few years. Lured by the massive growth of India’s digital lending market, many foreign investors, particularly from China, are pumping money into these apps, while the dirty job of harassing borrowers is outsourced to cybercrooks, said experts. At present, 50 apps are the prime targets of authorities. An RBI Working Group report in November 2021 had said that there were as many as 600 illegal loan apps in India.

“We received various complaints against digital lending apps, through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We have also noticed that many RBI-approved companies were doing unethical practices which were violating RBI guidelines and the Google Play Store policy. We segregated apps through victims’ complaints and submitted a list of rogue apps to a Bangalore-based IT firm which is a member of the RBI working committee,” said cyber security activist Pravin Kalaiselvan, whose NGO SaveThem India Foundation has been helping loan app victims across India.