Clarification regarding Implementation of Recommendations of the Working group on Digital Lending

RBI vide circular dated August 10, 2022, has issued clarification regarding Implementation of Recommendations of the Working group on Digital Lending. The recommendations including following directions:

1. All loan disbursals and repayments are required to be executed only between the bank accounts of borrower and the Regulated Entities (REs) without any pass-through/ pool account of the LSP or any third party.
2. Any fees, charges, etc., payable to Lending Service Providers(LSPs) in the credit intermediation process shall be paid directly by RE and not by the borrower.
3. A standardized Key Fact Statement (KFS) must be provided to the borrower before executing the loan contract.
4. All-inclusive cost of digital loans in the form of Annual Percentage Rate (APR)6 is required to be disclosed to the borrowers. APR shall also form part of KFS.
5. Automatic increase in credit limit without explicit consent of borrower is prohibited.
6. A cooling-off/ look-up period during which the borrowers can exit digital loans by paying the principal and the proportionate APR without any penalty shall be provided as part of the loan contract.
7. REs shall ensure that they and the LSPs engaged by them shall have a suitable nodal grievance redressal officer to deal with FinTech/ digital lending related complaints. Such grievance redressal officer shall also deal with complaints against their respective Digital Lending Apps (DLAs). The details of the Grievance redressal officer shall be prominently indicated on the website of the RE, its LSPs and on DLAs, as applicable.
8. As per extant RBI guidelines, if any complaint lodged by the borrower is not resolved by the RE within the stipulated period (currently 30 days), he/she can lodge a complaint under the Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS)7.