How to identify fake lending apps and avoid financial fraud

financialexpress.com:

India is hailed as the third largest fintech ecosystem in the world with over 10000 FinTech firms in the country. The fintech adoption rate in India is 87% which is way above the global average of 64%. On top of that, the value of India’s Financial Inclusion Index is 60.1 as against 56.4 in the previous year. Yet, India is severely credit underpenetrated. The credit card penetration is estimated at around merely 5.5% of the population and even India’s domestic credit to the private sector at 55% of GDP in 2020 is remarkably below the world average (148%), and lowest among its Asian peers — China (182%), South Korea (165%), and Vietnam (148%).

A period when finance has become digital and plugs in very well within the overall architecture of Digital India, financial transactions are increasingly being conducted online which is evident from the fact that over 10 billion-plus UPI transactions were made in September 2023. While payment is an anchor product, digital credit is equally on the rise, as per industry data, the Indian fintech market is poised to grow to $1.5 trillion by 2030 and the size of Digital lending is expected to be over $500 billion by the same period, contributing 13 per cent of the global fintech revenue.

The obvious question is, how would it happen, what are the drivers and risks?

With the proliferation of Digital Public Infrastructure like UPI, BBPS, Account Aggregator framework and the Identity stack in place, Digital Lending Applications (DLAs) play a critical role in offering a seamless user experience and connecting them to the global fintech highway.

Also Read: Why you should never buy insurance just for tax saving

Like all good things, of late we have witnessed the emergence of the menace of