FG raids online money lenders
FG raids offices of illegal online loan providers in Lagos
Officials of the Federal Competition Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), as well as those from the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and supported by operatives of the Nigeria police, Friday, raided offices of some unregistered online money lender operating in Lagos.
The raid which saw the officials storm the Opebi Road, Ikeja, offices of the illegal online money lending companies was in response to customers’ complaints of malpractices by the financial institutions.
The companies raided included; those of GoCash, Okash, EasyCredit, Kashkash, Speedy Choice, Easy Moni.
Speaking during the raid, the Chief Executive Officer, FCCPC, Babatunde Irukera, explained that customers had accused the financial institutions of violating their privacy in their debt recovery drive.
He said the agency had begun investigations into the allegations since 2020.
“This information started quite a while ago. Some time ago, when the country was on lockdown in 2020 due to the pandemic, we started seeing the rise in money lenders.
“Because there was lockdown due to the pandemic, people needed small easy loan which is understandable. But over a period of time, people started complaining about the malpractices of the lenders, so we started tracking it.
“Towards the end of last year, we gathered quite a lot of information. We started working with some other key agencies and the FCCPC led the meeting where we all agreed there would be a joint effort to look into these businesses.
“The key two things that were subject of concern were what seems to be the naming and shaming violation of people’s privacy with respect to how these lenders recover their loans.
“Secondly, the interest rate seems to be a violation of the ethics on how lending is done. So, those were the two things that we set out to look for.
“So, we started an investigation trying to determine the location of these firms. That has been a very difficult thing. We did that for several months and some of them have moved from one place to the another and we have been visiting these places for months,” he said.
According to the FCCPC boss, investigations had revealed that the loan firms were neither Nigerian companies nor registered in the country.
“We found out that most of these companies operate from the same place. We also found out that many of them are actually operated by the same person. They are not Nigerian companies, they don’t have an address in Nigeria and they are not registered in Nigeria with the Corporate Affairs Commission and they do not have any licence to do their business.
“Essentially, what they have is an app, and so we started gathering more information about them. We engaged the public and the people who had been their victims. They gave us more information.
