By Dickson Pat
Number of loan app companies approved by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission ,FCCPC, and the Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN, has increased to 284 as of May 2024.
This was revealed by the FCCPC in its updated list of approved digital lenders. As of March this year, the number of approved companies stood at 266.
The list comprises companies that have been given full approval, conditional approval, and those licensed by the CBN. According to the FCCPC database, a total of 232 companies have been granted full approval to operate as digital lenders in the country while 41 companies have conditional approval.
The FCCPC listed 11 other companies licensed by the CBN to operate loan apps, making a total of 284 approved digital lenders for the Nigerian market.
With the increase in the number of approved digital lenders, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of loan apps offering instant loans to Nigeria. This is because many of the approved digital lenders operate multiple loan apps.
For instance, Acetech Finance Limited, one of the lenders approved by the FCCPC, operates through 8 different loan apps, which include Kashout, Flashcredit, Flashalart, Swiftcredit, Rapidloans, Acecredit, Aceloan, and Rapidalarts.
Similarly, Newedge Finance Limited, which is licensed by the CBN operates through Palm Credit, New Credit, Easybuy, Xcross Cash, and XCash apps.
The latest figures show that the FCCPC has continued to approve more digital lenders even as it struggles to bring the existing players under control.
The multiplicity of the apps being used by digital lenders is cited as one of the reasons the Commission is finding it difficult to curtail the incidences of harassment and defaming of borrowers by digital lenders.
Meanwhile, the FCCPC is now banking on the consumer credit scheme recently introduced by the Federal Government to curb the excesses of loan sharks.
The Acting Executive Vice-Chairman of the FCCPC, Adamu Abdullahi, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria ,NAN, on Sunday. Reacting to unethical practices by some digital money lenders, Abdullahi said the scheme would provide Nigerians with access to collateral-free soft loans.
He said the scheme would also help reduce the rate at which Nigerians use unregistered loan applications that tend to harm and shame their character.
“What is happening is because the availability of loans is not there in Nigeria but you can see that this government through its Renewed Hope Agenda came up with a credit scheme.
“It has now gone into effect but it is only for government workers for now, it is going to address the gap that the apps were addressing before.
“So, once we have that kind of possibility in which a person can get a loan from a recognized institution, banks, it will be a soft loan without collateral.
“When that gap is now filled, these people (loan companies) will sit up and do the right thing or they fizzle out of existence”, the FCCPC boss said.
President Bola Tinubu launched the first phase of the consumer credit scheme in April this year with civil servants as the major beneficiaries in this phase.
The scheme is one of the campaign policies of President Tinubu and comes amidst Nigerians borrowing over N740 billion in the first nine months of 2023.
The Nigeria Consumer Credit Corporation ,CREDICORP, has launched a portal for Nigerians to express their interest in obtaining consumer credit.
CREDICORP, a federally-owned entity, aims to increase consumer credit availability to 50% of Nigeria’s working population by 2030.
In the 2024 budget, the Federal Government earmarked N100 billion for the takeoff of the scheme
