New Delhi: Google 2,000. removed more than loan apps from India play store For violating conditions, misrepresenting information and suspicious offline behavior since January this year, a senior official said. The tech giant is also hoping to tighten policies in the coming weeks for more scrutiny in the sector, the official said.

Saikat MitraSenior Director and Head of Trust and Security, Google APAC (Asia Pacific Region) said the company is committed to complying with regulations in all its jurisdictions, and termed the online loss as a “global phenomenon”.

Asked about concerns in some quarters that digital platforms aren’t doing enough to prevent harm online and in fact pushing for new regulations to come, Mitra said Google’s priority and its core value will always be users. Surrounding security.

The company believes in having an open, multi-party industry dialogue with governments on regulation, adding that “everything in our world starts with user safety and security”.

“We have removed over 2000 loan apps from India Play Store since January,” Mitra said, adding that the action was based on seeking leads and inputs, violation of policy, lack of disclosure and misinformation.

He suggested that the loan app’s problem is “at peak”, and that focusing and attention to the issue may be less of a problem.

“We are in the process of some more policy changes that are going to come out in a few weeks… Harder investigation,” he said.

The nature of the ‘loan app’ problem varies between markets, Mitra explained.

For example, there is a problem of predatory loans in the US market, while in India it is a combination of misrepresentation, non-compliance with policies and regulations and unfair offline or “real world” behavior of such apps on recovery and other actions.

“This includes questions like…. Is the loan app majorly disclosing what people are signing up for, eg rates… Are you tied with an approved NBFC or bank. .. is that bank on RBI’s blacklist. .. it also gets into things offline for which we don’t have visibility but we get inputs from law enforcement agencies,” he elaborated.

On the issue of new rules and government policies, Mitra said, “Whenever rules come, we work closely with the government and industry.”

“We think, we are all trying to achieve the same goals… which is respecting privacy and security. We think our policies should really help us achieve this. When​​ Even when regulation comes, we have a dialogue and we make sure we present our point of view,” he said.