How Fair is FairMoney To Nigerians?

 How Fair is FairMoney To Nigerians?

FairMoney the current most popular instant loan app in NIgeria is now a fully licensed microfinance bank after four years of operations in the country. But has FairMoney been fair to Nogerians and what makes it different from the dreaded loan sharks embarrassing and harassing borrowers who failed to repay loans when the time was due? 

What are the benefits of FairMoney? 

I have been using FairMoney for over one year and I was not embarrassed and harassed when the repayment of my personal loan was delayed for a month. 

Complaints of many people in NIgeria about the high interest rates of loan sharks and their defamation of customers who failed to repay their loans have been making headlines in Africa's most populous country.

Economic hardships caused by widespread loss jobs during the peaks of COVID-19 pandemic and unemployment left millions of Nigerians broke and poor with financial challenges in paying their bills, house rent, school fees and feeding. Therefore, they resorted to borrowing money from the various money lenders online with different mobile apps for quick loans. But many of them defaulted on the repayment of their loans when incomes were delayed or never earned making them debtors. There have been reported cases of tragic consequences of debtors committing suicide when loan sharks circulated defamatory emails and text messages to their families, relations, confidants, friends and other contacts to embarrass them and bully them until they repaid their loans. 

Some bold debtors sued the most notorious loan sharks for defamation of character and won their cases. One of the loan sharks lost millions of naira in a lawsuit after the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) sanctioned the operations in NIgeria.

According to NITDA, it received a series of complaints against the company for ‘unauthorized disclosures, failure to protect customers’ personal data and defamation of character.

NITDA said its investigations showed that Soko Loans grants its customers uncollateralised loans and requires a loanee to download its mobile application on their phone and activate a direct debit in the company’s favour which grants the application access to the loanee’s phone contacts.

“According to one of the complainants, when he failed to meet up with his repayment obligations due to insufficient credit in his account on the date the direct debit was to take effect, the company unilaterally sent privacy-invading messages to the complainant’s contacts,” the statement read in part.

https://www.icirnigeria.org/nitda-imposes-n10-million-fine-on-soko-loan-for-data-privacy-invasion/