Among the financial institutions affected were, GoCash,
Okash, EasyCredit, Kashkash, Speedy Choice, Easy Moni.
The FCCPC said, the raid was in response to customers’ complaints
of malpractices by the financial institutions.
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.
According to him, “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.”
He said the interest rate charged by online financial
institutions appear to violate the ethics of how lending is done.
He further said, “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”
The FCCPC boss, however, said 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”.
As a result, Irukare said the agency had written to global
app companies asking them to suspend the operations of the online banks.
He said, “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”
“As we got more information we had enough evidence to
convince the court to issue a warrant for us to proceed with an investigation
into a search and seizure.
And sometime last month, a court issued a warrant and
between then and now, we were preparing a sting operation which is what you are
seeing here today. The reason for this is because we wanted to be sure we are
hitting at the place we could get many of them.”
He explained, “In addition to what you are seeing here
today, the FCCPC has also issued multiple orders today. Two of them are going
to vendors: Apple and Google stores where some of these apps are available.
We have asked them to shut these companies’ apps down so
that people will not be victimised anymore. Secondly, some of them (the orders)
have gone to the bank, asking them to freeze the accounts used by these
people.”
“I must add though that not all money lenders are operating
illegally and that is why it has been taking time for us to track these people.
It doesn’t also mean that the people we are proceeding
against today are the only ones, no. We want to start with them. We also
understand that they are between five and seven companies operating at the same
location.”
NAN
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