Apple pulls predatory lending apps from India App Store

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Apple has removed several predatory lending apps from the App Store in India, after users took to social media and complained about them. Over the past few days, several users stated that apps with names like White Kash, Pocket Kash, Golden Kash had started showing up on the Top Finance Apps chart. 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. News website Techcrunch first reported about Apple pulling these predatory lending apps on Friday evening. Apple had said earlier that its App Store stopped over $2 billion fraudulent transactions in 2022, rejected nearly 1.7 million app submissions for failing to meet Apple's standards of quality and safety, and terminated 4,28,000 developer accounts for potentially fraudulent activity.

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