India digital loan apps blamed for mafia-like collection tactics, suicides

Panel set up by the RBI finds more than half of about 1,100 digital loan providers operate illegally.

When V. Rajapandian was pushed out of his job at a heat treatment plant in India, the reason had nothing to do with performance or falling revenue. Instead, his boss offered a peculiar explanation: After Rajapandian defaulted on a loan from a mobile app, recovery agents demanded the plant pay on his behalf.
 

“I lost my job because of them,” Rajapandian said of CASHe, the app he used to secure a $132 loan. “I constantly live with the fear that they will track me down and harass me.”

As digital lending explodes across India and other developing economies, Rajapandian’s ordeal