Things to ponder when loan sharks come biting

APPS' MODELS ASSUMED MOST INDIANS HAD NO CREDIT HISTORY BUT PLENTY OF PAYMENT HISTORY

- Charles Assisi

The men who jumped off bridges, drank poison, or hanged from ceiling fans because they couldn't repay a ₹2,000 or ₹10,000 loan never made it to the pitch decks. But they should have.

One of them was a 21-year-old fisherman from Visakhapatnam, whose wife's morphed photographs were circulated by digital loan recovery agents. Another was a 50-year-old schoolteacher from Alibag who jumped to his death from Atal Setu in February this year. He had borrowed ₹12,000 which he couldn't repay in time, and was chased by agents who allegedly sent doctored nude photos to his family. A third case surfaced in Thane, where a man died by suicide after harassment over a ₹1.8 lakh loan.

None of this was supposed to happen. India's fintech story was meant to be a triumph. A tale of leapfrogging legacy systems, of using data and design to make money accessible, fast, and friendly. And for a while, it was just that. UPI transformed how India paid. Everyone could send and receive money instantly. Into that stream came fintech startups, moving fast, raising big, and breaking old models. They made credit frictionless. The interface was intuitive. The promises were seductive. Small-ticket loans were available in minutes, with no paperwork, no collateral, no questions asked.

But as the loans piled up, so did the complaints. Most of these were about the recovery process. About harassment. About shame. And about silence—because it wasn't always clear who the borrower had actually taken the loan from.