Google Play Personal Loans Policy: What changed, impact, and mitigations for digital lenders
Executive summary
- Google Play has tightened its Financial Services, Personal Loans policy. Personal-loan apps, lines of credit, facilitators/lead generators, accessory credit apps (calculators/guides), and EWA apps are prohibited from accessing several sensitive permissions (e.g., contacts, photos/videos, precise location, phone numbers, broad app visibility, external storage).
- Expect enforcement during app review and on updates. Non‑compliance can lead to rejection or removal.
- Impact on data-driven lending: certain device signals will no longer be available, which can reduce model lift if you relied on them.
- Credolab’s view: Compliance first. Predictive performance can be preserved with a tailor‑made model that taps our 11M+ engineered features (vs. the ~100 features many clients use today) and focuses on permitted, stable signals.
What changed (at a glance)
Who’s in scope
- Personal‑loan apps (including lead generators/facilitators and lines of credit)
- Accessory loan/credit apps (e.g., calculators, guides)
- Earned Wage Access (EWA) apps
Prohibited permissions for in‑scope apps (examples)
- READ_CONTACTS (no phonebook access)
- READ_MEDIA_IMAGES / READ_MEDIA_VIDEO (no broad photo/video access)
- READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE / WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
- ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION (precise location)
- READ_PHONE_NUMBERS
- QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES (no broad installed‑app inventory)
Other ongoing requirements (selected)
- App category must be set to "Finance".
- Disclose min/max repayment period, max APR, representative cost example, privacy policy in store listing.
- Short‑term personal loans (≤60 days) are not allowed.
- US APR ≥36% is not allowed.
- Country‑specific licensing and disclosures apply for India, Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan, and Thailand.
Timing
Enforcement is active. Assume no grace if you newly request a prohibited permission.
What this means for your app and models
The following signals are likely to disappear:
- Contacts/phonebook: Referral flows, social‑graph heuristics, collections “friend reach” tactics.
- Photos/videos/external storage: Any verification or “gallery scan”‑type checks.
- Precise location: Fine‑grained geolocation features.
- Read phone numbers: Automatic line detection, some telco‑based heuristics.
- Installed‑app inventory (broad): Installed apps features via QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES.
