Online loan apps are prohibited from accessing customers' personal information

From May 31, 2023, digital loan apps in Nigeria will be prohibited from accessing customers' private information. This latest development coincides with the government's plan to limit the invasion of customers' privacy by loan apps, an issue that has both customers and the industry regulator concerned. "Apps that provide personal loans, or have the primary purpose of facilitating access to personal loans (i.e., lead generators or facilitators)," the company stated in the update.The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) had earlier confirmed that out of the 173 companies that were registered to operate as loan companies in the country, the commission gave conditional authorization to 54 loan applications while 119 got full approvals. The FCCPC, in partnership with Google, had also made available, a new policy guideline that would require all loan apps operating in Nigeria to provide an approval document from the FCCPC or risk being removed from Google Play Store. Google’s policy update released in April 2023 said the new policy would save customers that patronized these loan apps from the crude loan retrieval methods employed by a majority of the digital lenders.