Soko Loan Sanction: Why NITDA Slam ₦10 Million Fine
Soko Loan Sanction:
When the National Information Technology Development Agency found Soko Loan Company Limited guilty of illegally manipulating consumers’ private data in Nigeria, they sanctioned sokoloan. NITDA sanction sokoloan a total of 10 Million Naira; so to stop other loan apps from doing a similar thing.
Agency officials say they’ve received numerous complaints about the company’s violations of the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation (NDP), including “unauthorized disclosure, failure to protect customers’ personal data and defamation of character, and to carry out due diligence as prescribed by NDP.”
After receiving a complaint from Bloomgate Solicitors on behalf of its client on Monday, 11th November 2019, the regulatory body NITDA began an inquiry – a first for the regulatory body – into the alleged breaches.
Microloans can be disbursed in as little as five minutes to 24 hours on most platforms, which don’t require borrowers to put up any collateral.
Loan recipients who fail on their loans are targeted by their lenders, who have unauthorized access to the contact databases of their associates. Customers’ contacts receive messages from the platform alerting them to the scam the client has perpetrated on them. These contacts could be friends, coworkers, or even in-laws.
When one complainant was unable to meet his repayment obligations because he had insufficient credit in his account on the date the direct debit was scheduled to take effect, the company sent privacy-invading messages to that person’s contacts, according to a statement released by a consumer protection agency. “
But Soko Loan resisted the efforts of the agency, which claimed to have made a concerted attempt to reform its immoral methods. Even after the agency obtained a lien order on one of the company’s accounts, Soko Loan continued to rebrand and instruct its consumers to pay into its other business accounts.
Depending on whom you ask, there are currently between 60 and 80 lending apps in Nigeria. There are only about 20 unique apps, and the rest are all developed by the same company.” D, a product specialist for TechCabal, said. For example, Sokoloan has seven apps.
The company’s mobile app has trackers, according to the NITDA probe. Trackers that share consumers’ information with third parties were not provided with legal information by Soko Loan.
Additionally, NITDA ordered that no more privacy-invading messages be delivered to Nigerians until the corporation and its affiliates demonstrated complete compliance with the NDPR.
Numerous complaints from people who believe that microloans apps have violated their privacy have resulted in this sentence. They are required to keep an eye on it as long as they are allowed to.
