On Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that 33 unlicensed online lending platforms (OLPs) had been taken down from the Google Play Store.
The SEC said that the apps broke its disclosure rules.
Lending and financing businesses must register their applications as company names, disclose their corporate identities in their apps and marketing, and include their SEC registration number, certificate of authority number, and SEC registration name.
“The removal of the OLPs is also in line with the SEC’s previous discussions with Google. In May 2022, Google adopted a new policy which required developers with personal loan apps targeting users in the Philippines to submit a Personal Loan App Declaration and necessary documentation before they could publish apps on Google Play Store,” the SEC said.
“Personal loan apps operating in the Philippines without proper declaration and license attribution will be removed from Google Play Store. In the event where the submitted license, registration or declaration is no longer valid under applicable laws, the developers are required to promptly remove the app from the Google Play Store,” it added.
The SEC claimed to have also released Memorandum Circular No. 10, Series of 2021 (SEC MC 10) in November 2021, which put a stop to the registration of future OLPs.
33 unregistered online lending apps removed from Google play store – SEC
According to SEC MC 10, only OLPs registered as of Nov. 2, 2021 may be used for online lending or financing.
The SEC reported that it has so far canceled the certificates of authority (CA) of 39 lending and financing firms owing to different infractions and revoked the certificates of registration of 2,084 lending and financing companies because they had not obtained the necessary certificate of authority.
In April 2022, SEC ordered three online lending companies Golden Cash, Help Cash, and Grace Cash, to cease operations due to a lack of regulatory approval.
SEC ordered the three lending firms “to immediately cease and desist from engaging in, carrying out, promoting and facilitating any lending activity/transaction until they have secured the necessary registration and license from the commission.”
Golden Cash, Help Cash, and Grace Cash are not registered as corporations with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the regulatory agency.
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