San Francisco: Opera – a freeware web browser for Microsoft Windows – is allegedly offering predatory loans through Android apps running four Android apps aimed at India, Kenya and Nigeria (CashBean, OKash, OPay, and OPesa) that appear to be in direct violation of Google Play Store policies, forbidding predatory loans and deceptive descriptions.
CashBean is an instant personal loan platform for Indian mobile users. The application process takes three steps with minimal documentation and in around 10 minutes, the approved loan amount is transferred to the applicant’s bank account.
According to a report by Hindenburg Research, the company’s losses in browser revenue have apparently led it to create multiple loan apps with short payment windows and interest rates of 365-876 percent, which are in violation of the new Play Store rules Google enacted last year, Android Police reported on Monday.
It is pertinent to note that that Opera is not doing well in the era of Google Chrome dominance.
Opera became a public company in mid-2017, shortly after it was purchased by a China-based investor group. (IANS)