Unsung Heroes: How Babu Pooniawalla’s crusade against fake loan apps is saving millions

By 2018, Pooniawalla was part of the initial engineering team at IND Money, a fintech startup in Gurgaon, where he developed financial mobile apps. His curiosity about the fintech domain grew, leading him to consult for wealth and investment firms, including Wealthzi, Basis and Advisorkhoj, until mid-2024. But a darker side of the app ecosystem soon captured his attention.

In 2023, while developing apps for the Apple App Store, Pooniawalla stumbled upon a disturbing trend: fake loan apps. “I heard about these fake loan apps that many users were falling prey to. It was regressive—despite the rigorous app store publishing process, fake loan apps were thriving,” he says. His research revealed a grim reality. Many apps bore unfamiliar names, lacked credible teams, and operated under fake developer accounts.

A tweet he posted about the issue gained traction, but the stakes became personal when he learned of a man in Kerala who died by suicide after taking a loan from a flagged app.

“Had it been removed, he might still be alive,” Pooniawalla says. His findings were staggering. In July 2023, 27 of India’s top 200 most-downloaded apps—15%—were fake. In Google India’s finance category, 32 out of 200 apps showed similar red flags: shady names, dubious logos, and no credible information. Some of the fake loan apps include RupeeFlow, Master Kash, Leaf Cash, EE-Cash, MM9 Wealth, and Verifile IND, among others. “These apps were running ads, amassing millions of downloads in just three to four months,” he says. Loan apps became his primary focus, revealing a cat-and-mouse game with scammers across India, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, and the Philippines.

What started as a hobby turned into a passion. “It angered me—why was nobody holding Google and Apple accountable?” he asks. Pooniawalla’s efforts exposed a systemic issue. Scammers exploited loopholes, often misusing corporate identities to make their apps appear legitimate. “Scammers have deeper pockets than VC-funded fintechs. Fake loan apps are a nightmare for genuine lenders, fuelling artificial competition in the digital space, increasing customer acquisition costs, and stealing real users,” he says.

Over two years, he flagged 22,000 apps—15,000 in the last 12 months alone—mostly loan and trading scams. Google removed 12,000, and Apple 5,000, but 5,000 remain active. “They keep resurfacing. Why aren’t they fixing this?” he asks. His work hasn’t gone unnoticed by scammers. Some have also reached out via LinkedIn and Twitter, offering bribes to stop him from exposing their apps. “In Indonesia, scammers struggled as I disrupted their operations within minutes of them publishing fake loan apps online. They also ordered me not to take down these apps,” says Pooniawalla.

However, he states that they adapted, finding new ways to exploit systems through UPI, PDF readers, SMS tools, among others. Despite the challenges, Pooniawalla remains motivated. “I see the effect—one or two apps come up occasionally now. But I will take down each one of these fake apps,” he says. Last week alone, he flagged 500 apps, with 400 removed.

In mid-2024, Pooniawalla left consulting to build solutions with his other partners. He is developing a tool akin to Truecaller, set to launch next month, that analyses app links in real-time to detect fraud. “I’m trying to automate it—identify 10,000 apps a day using AI to spot scammer patterns,” he explains. His focus now includes data-stealing scams like PDF readers, illegal betting apps, fake trading apps impersonating SEBI-registered stock brokers, crypto scams, fake dating and video call apps, and data-stealing apps that target Indian consumers despite legal restrictions.

Reflecting on the broader impact, Pooniawalla notes the human toll. “Consumers are losing trust. The vulnerable are driven to suicidal thoughts,” he says. He urges Google and Apple to act: “It’s 2025—five years since these scams peaked. They need to acknowledge the problem and solve it. It is time for a collaboration where we should work together to fix this. It is Covid-19 in digital form .” His message to victims is empathetic: “Don’t argue with scammers. Report them, and don’t feel you’re alone.”

From Churu, Pooniawalla’s fight spans nine countries, undeterred by language barriers or poor connectivity. “The language of scammers is the same worldwide,” he says.