The House of Representatives has vowed to investigate and sanction unregulated online money lenders shortchanging Nigerians through dubious, instant loans.
This followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance by Satomi Ahmed (APC, Borno) at the plenary on Thursday.
Presenting the motion, Ahmed said unscrupulous, unregulated money lenders are on the prowl and are shortchanging low income earners in Nigeria.
He said, “There is an urgent need to investigate the sharp practices by unregulated, online Fintech lending companies that abuse the mobile digital norms in Nigeria.
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“There is proliferation of online loans applications by some fraudulent, unscrupulous profiteers affecting many low income Nigerians who are convinced to borrow and get trapped in a way of sharp loans, hosted by Google playstore, by individual companies and swindle the low income earners.”
According to him, these money lenders are using applications on various platforms and websites to advertise their loans services through mouthwatering offers without collateral.
Satomi said that the loans which were given instantly have strings attached which were sometimes not met by the beneficiaries.
The lawmaker lamented that the beneficiaries would later be inundated with threatening messages when they default for no fault of theirs.
He added, “Most of these loan apps companies and individuals operate with no regulation, no licence at all.
“The status of these operators from the Corporate Affairs Commission shows that founding directors of such apps companies were foreign nationals without required licence to operate the volume of financial transactions.”
He therefore called on the House to alert and direct all relevant agencies to tackle the activities of the online money lenders.
