The Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Commission, FCCPC, has mandated payment systems operators, PSOs, including Flutterwave, Opay, Paystack, and Monify, as well as telecommunication companies, and Mobile Network Operators, MNOs, in the country to stop giving their support which enabled the operations of illegal digital money lenders, aka money/loan sharks, in Nigeria.
Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of FCCPC, Babatunde Irukera, who announce the news yesterday, in Lagos, when the Commission conducted enforcement actions against a loan shark company known as Soko Lending Limited, added that FCCPC has secured orders to disable or diminish violators’ ability to circumvent regulatory efforts to protect citizens.
Irukera had also revealed that a Limited Interim Regulatory/Registration Framework and Guidelines for Digital Lending has been developed and adopted by the inter-agency Joint Regulatory and Enforcement Task Force as a precautionary step to creating a clear regulatory framework for the sector.
The Commission had in the past, carried out a similar enforcement action which reduced exploitative practices in the industry, noting, however, that some of the lenders had invented dubious methods to work-around account freezing and app suspension orders.
