From "Growth at Any Cost" to "Prove You're Safe"
For most of the last decade, Indian fintech was judged on one thing: how fast it grew. Downloads, disbursals, gross merchandise value, valuation multiples — these were the numbers that made headlines. Governance, risk controls, and customer grievance handling were treated as back-office plumbing, not something worth bragging about.
That is changing, and not by choice. A string of regulatory actions against digital lenders, payment aggregators, and even some well-known NBFC-backed apps has made it clear that the RBI is no longer willing to let "we're just a tech platform" be an excuse for weak oversight. Fintech leaders themselves are now openly saying that the industry's next phase will be judged on governance — how well a company manages risk, discloses fees, protects data, and treats customers when something goes wrong — rather than on how quickly it can acquire users.
For an everyday user, this shift matters more than it sounds. It means the fintech app on your phone is not just a convenience layer; it is a financial decision you are making about who handles your money and your data. Here's how to actually evaluate that decision.
Check Who Is Actually Lending or Holding Your Money
Most fintech apps are not banks or NBFCs themselves — they are technology platforms that partner with a regulated lender or bank behind the scenes. This is completely legal and common, but you have a right to know who that partner is.
- Open the app's "About," "Terms," or "Loan Agreement" section and look for the name of the actual lending NBFC or bank.
- Search that entity's name on the RBI website to confirm it holds a valid licence.
- If the app cannot clearly name its lending partner, or buries it in fine print, treat that as a red flag rather than a minor detail.
A well-governed fintech will make this information easy to find, precisely because it has nothing to hide.
Read the Grievance Redressal Section Before You Need It
Every regulated financial entity is required to have a grievance redressal mechanism, and RBI's digital lending guidelines specifically require lending apps to display a grievance officer's name and contact details. Yet most users only look for this after something has already gone wrong — a wrongful deduction, a harassment call from a recovery agent, or a loan disbursed without clear consent.
Before you trust an app with your money, spend two minutes checking:
- Is there a named grievance officer, not just a generic support email?
- Is there a clear escalation path to the RBI Ombudsman if the app doesn't resolve your complaint in time?
- Does the app mention a turnaround time for complaint resolution, or is it vague?
Apps that treat this as a genuine obligation, rather than a checkbox, are usually the ones investing in governance rather than just growth.
Look at How the App Talks About Fees, Not Just What It Charges
Governance failures in fintech rarely show up as one big scandal. More often, they show up as small, repeated patterns: processing fees that appear only at the final payment screen, "convenience charges" that aren't mentioned upfront, or interest calculated on a different base than what was advertised.
A genuinely well-governed app will show you the full cost of a loan or product — principal, interest, processing fee, GST, and any other charge — in one place, before you confirm. If you have to hunt across multiple screens to add up the real cost, or if numbers presented at the start don't match what shows up at disbursal, that is a governance gap, regardless of how polished the app's design looks.
Notice What Happens When the App Wants More Data Than It Needs
Fintech apps often ask for permissions that go well beyond what a specific transaction requires — access to your contacts, SMS messages, photos, or location, even for a simple bill payment. RBI's digital lending framework has specifically flagged this kind of over-collection of data as a risk area, particularly for lending apps that have, in the past, misused contact lists for recovery harassment.
Before granting permissions, ask yourself whether the request logically matches the service. A UPI payments app needing camera access for QR scanning makes sense. A personal loan app asking for your entire photo gallery does not. Apps with strong governance tend to ask for the minimum data needed and explain clearly why they need it.
Governance Is Now a Selling Point — Use That to Your Advantage
The good news in this shift is that fintech companies now have a genuine incentive to be transparent, because regulators, investors, and partner banks are all pushing them to prove they're well-governed, not just fast-growing. That means many apps are starting to publish clearer disclosures, name their lending partners more prominently, and respond faster to complaints — not out of goodwill, but because governance has become a competitive requirement for survival and continued bank partnerships.
As a user, you don't need to become a compliance expert to benefit from this shift. You just need to know where to look — the lending partner's name, the grievance officer's details, the full cost breakdown, and the permissions being requested. An app that gets these basics right is far more likely to still be around, and still be regulator-compliant, when you actually need to rely on it during a dispute.
