Harassments, threats, intimidations faced by digital loan defaulters dropped by 80 per cent.
According to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), this is owing to its moves to curb the menace.
Similarly, the Commission plans to develop a new regulatory framework to address Nigerians’ rising indebtedness to digital money lenders (DMLs) also known as loan apps.
Babatunde Irukera, the chief executive officer of FCCPC, disclosed this during a live television programme on Monday. Irukera noted that indebtedness to the DMLs has become a serious industry issue.
The FCCPC boss added that once there is a systemic approach that prevents people from access to credit on account of their responsibility or otherwise, there would be self-regulation of people and then loan recovery.
He said the Commission had found out that most people defaulting are the same taking loans from several other apps.
“So, we can address that if there is a central place where they could get information about individuals and their creditworthiness. If you don’t have access to credit you must build your responsibility and your creditworthiness and so there’s quite a lot still in the pipeline that we’ve been working on and we anticipate that 2024 will cause that to emerge,” he added.
Speaking on drop in Loan app harassment, Irukera noted that the implementation of its interim framework has led to about 80 per cent reduction in harassment and defamatory messages from loan apps.
While noting that the Commission was not satisfied with its achievements, he said efforts are ongoing to address the remaining 20 per cent.
He added that the limited and interim regulatory framework for the loan apps is still evolving because fintech is new and emerging across the world.
According to him, digital money lending is plugging an important gap in society, hence, developing the best regulatory ecosystem for that also requires learning from the industry and learning from how it is operating. (Guardian)
