Google removes more than 2000 harmful personal loan apps from Play Store

Google has banned over 2,000 apps offering instant loan services to customers between January and June this year. The bans enforced by the company were put in place after a combination of policy violations, user reports, and collaboration with various law enforcement agencies and policy bodies.

Senior Director and Head of Trust & Safety for Google Asia-Pacific Saikat Mitra said, “Supported by local research and feedback from our stakeholders, we have been updating the Google Play policies associated with personal loan apps in India.”

Mitra added, “The bans that we enforce include evaluation of data that we collect ourselves — as well as what we collate from offline, third-party sources. This information could include details such as acts of customer harassment over phone calls made by these instant loan service providers.”

Mitra also revealed that apps are reviewed on Google Play Store when they are uploaded, but in the case of loan apps, a lot of criminal activities were also reported outside of the internet world. He further added that the apps were posing a threat to the Indian users and so the company decided to remove them after consulting with the law enforcement authorities.

The information came as the Indian government plans to ban 300 such personal loan apps soon. Most of the apps have been traced to China, linked to money laundering.