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The Nigerian Government has recently intensified its crackdown against the activities of some unscrupulous and illegal digital lenders.
Already, a number of these digital lenders have been shut down. The government explained last week that the move became necessary due to the excessive rights violations and unfair practices of some of the lenders.
Business Insider Africa also gathered that some of these lenders are not even registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). More so, some of them are not licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to operate in the West African country.
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According to local media, some of the digital lenders that have been affected by the crackdown are: GoCash, Okash, EasyCredit, Kashkash, Speedy Choice, Easy Moni.
While commenting on the situation recently, the Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr. Babatunde Irukera, explained how the issues with the illegal digital lenders came about.
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“Because people were on lockdown due to the pandemic, people started needing small easy loans, which is understandable. However, over a period of time, people started complaining about the malpractice of the lenders. So, we started tracking it.
“The key two things that were subjects of concern were what seems to be naming and shaming, violation of people’s privacy with respect to how these lenders recover the loans. Secondly, the interest rate seems to be a violation of the ethics on how lending is done. So, those were the two things that we set out to look for.
“We started an investigation trying to determine the location of these people and that has been a very difficult thing. We did that for several months and so one of them has moved from one place to the other and we have been visiting this place for months,” he said.
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In a statement issued yesterday via Twitter, the agency further disclosed that following the outcome of its investigations, that it has served orders on Google and Apple to remove some of the digital lending apps from their app stores.
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