The Cyber Security Authority (CSA) has announced that it is collaborating with relevant stakeholders to rid the country of fake and unregistered online lending platforms.
The move is to sanitize the digital landscape by identifying and taking action against these unregistered lending apps, which operate outside the bounds of legal and ethical standards.
In an interview, a Senior Manager at the CSA’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), Isaac Socrates Mensah, revealed that over 400 people have been arrested since it engaged with major players in the industry.
“In January 2023, we issued a public alert warning and informing people of the growing trend. We repeated the alert in June this year. We’ve been working with law enforcement agencies like the Economic and Organised Crime Office(EOCO) and the Bank of Ghana (BoG) as well.
“We had some engagements and have been able to identify some of these persons, where about 400 people were arrested. Investigations are still ongoing. Also, we’ve started engaging with Google because these apps are prevalent on the Google Play Store.
“The first one we did, we were able to identify the apps and we asked Google to take them down. However, there was a resurgence where they created the apps with different names and put them back on Play Store, so we are still engaging with Google to identify ways to make the online space safe,” he said.
His assurance comes after several complaints from the populace about the rise of unregistered and unregulated lending apps operating without the necessary permits.
These platforms often lure users with quick and easy loans, but once the loans are disbursed, they impose exorbitant interest rates, trapping borrowers in a cycle of debt.
In addition to these predatory practices, some of these apps resort to threatening and dubious means to retrieve debts.
Users have reported being harassed and publicly shamed, with their personal information sometimes being shared with third parties as a tactic to coerce repayment.
Mr Mensah, in the Citi FM interview monitored by The Ghana Report, emphasised the importance of creating a safe online environment for all users, free from the threats and manipulative tactics employed by these rogue platforms.
By working with financial regulators, law enforcement agencies and other key stakeholders, the authority is determined to clamp down on these operations and ensure that only legally compliant and responsible lending apps are allowed to operate in the country.
The CSA further urged the public to be cautious when engaging with online loan apps and to report any suspicious or unethical behaviour to the appropriate authorities.