Loan apps or digital money lenders, as the companies behind them are known, have become essential in Nigeria’s informal economy by offering quick and accessible loans.
This is despite challenges around their operations, particularly in debt recovery practices, which has seen the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) placed some of them on its watchlist and directed the removal of 47 of them from the Google Play Store.
Nigerians’ continued reliance on these digital lenders shows the demand for quick financial solutions, even in the face of complaints about unethical practices like harassment and defamation.
However, many loan apps are operating legitimately, adhering to the FCCPC’s Limited Interim Regulatory/Registration Framework and other industry guidelines set by bodies like the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
With over 200 FCCPC-approved loan apps, one way to evaluate their reliability is through user ratings and reviews on app stores.
For this ranking, we focus on Google Play Store ratings, as most loan apps are unavailable on the Apple Store.
We first ranked loan apps in Nigeria based on this parameter in January this year. Interestingly, a look at the apps against their current ratings shows that there has been a lot of changes.
Here are the top 10 loan apps in Nigeria as of September 2024, based on their user ratings:
Xcrosscash is a loan app that lets the user activate their credit limit. It offers instant loans ranging between N10,000 and N50,000 with repayment plans from 91 days to 180 days.
The Xcrosscash app has been downloaded over one million times on the Google Play Store.
The app has seen improved ratings over the last few months moving from 4.0 in January to 4.1 in September 2024.
The app has been rated by 34,000 users as of this month.
