The Centre has announced that only legal loan apps will be put on app stores for installation and use.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is to prepare a 'whitelist' of all the legal apps and the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will ensure that only these 'whitelist' apps are hosted on app stores.

This decision was taken at a high-level meeting on issues related to illegal loan apps, which was chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on September 8.

It was decided in the meeting that the RBI will monitor the 'mule or rented' accounts that may be used for money laundering and accordingly cancel dormant non-bank finance institutions or NBFCs to avoid their misuse, official sources said. The RBI will also ensure that the registration of payment aggregators is completed within a timeframe and no unregistered payment aggregator is allowed to function after that.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has been asked to identify armour companies and de-register them to prevent their misuse.

Nirmala Sitharaman expressed her concern over the rising cases of illegal loan apps offering loans mostly to unsafe sections of society.

She also highlighted the possibility of money laundering, tax evasion and data breaches by such aggregators.

The Minister told officials that steps should be taken to increase cyber awareness among customers, bank employees, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders.

The meeting was attended by the Finance Secretary, Economic Affairs Secretary, Banking Secretary as well as Secretaries from ministries like corporate affairs and IT.

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