RBI Publishes List of 1,600 Legal Digital Lending Apps
In a major move to enhance transparency and protect consumers in India’s rapidly growing fintech space, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released a comprehensive list of 1,600 verified Digital Lending Apps (DLAs) on its official website. This step aims to help users identify legitimate platforms and avoid falling prey to fraudulent or unregulated digital lenders.
RBI Enhances Transparency With Legal Lending List
The published list includes apps associated with both regulated entities (REs) and their Lending Service Providers (LSPs). Major platforms such as Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm, BharatPe, Navi, LendingKart, and Axio feature on the whitelist. According to the RBI, this initiative stems from the 2023 guidelines on digital lending that call for disclosure, transparency, and borrower protection across digital credit platforms.
Crackdown on Unregulated Apps
The list forms part of a broader effort to clean up the digital lending ecosystem, which has seen a rise in predatory lending, harassment, and data misuse by illegal loan apps. In 2022, the Ministry of Finance had asked the RBI to create a whitelist, while the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was instructed to block unverified apps from app stores. The list allows borrowers to cross-verify the authenticity of apps, thereby reducing their exposure to high-risk platforms.
Live Updates via Central Portal
The RBI also introduced an automated system that allows regulated entities to update their DLA information in real time via a centralized information management system. This ensures that the public list remains up to date, without the need for separate manual validation by the central bank. Each app listed is directly linked to a regulated financial entity, providing legitimacy and traceability for consumers.
