Apple pulls predatory lending apps from India App Store

Over the past few days, several users alleged that quick-loan apps with names like White Kash, Pocket Kash, Golden Kash had started showing up on the Top Finance Apps chart. These apps would demand unnecessary and intrusive permissions like access to the contact list and gallery, and would also harass and threaten users with dire consequences in case of a delay in payment. The apps were also misrepresenting that they were associated with a financial institution.

In a reply to ET’s queries on Friday, Apple confirmed that it has removed the apps for violating its policies.

“The App Store, and our App Review Guidelines, are designed to ensure we are providing the safest experience possible to our users. We have removed the apps in question for violating our Apple Developer Program License Agreement, and guidelines. We determined that these apps were falsely representing an association with a financial institution,” said Apple in its reply.

In April this year, Google said it had removed over 3,500 personal loan apps from its Play Store in India for policy violations.

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News website Techcrunch first reported about Apple pulling these predatory lending apps on Friday evening.

In February this year, the Indian government had issued orders to block 138 betting and gambling apps, and 94 quick-loan apps, on an “urgent” basis for “improper data storage and transfer” to other countries, and for money laundering.

Among the 94 quick-loan apps were some Indian ones like Naspers-owned PayU’s LazyPay, and Kissht, which led to fintech firms reaching out to various government departments for clarity. Eventually, the ban on some of these legit players was reversed.