84 Loans, 30 Lenders, Seven Months: How Loan Apps Lent One Borrower ₹43 Lakh to Repay Each Other

Between March and October 2026, a salaried engineer in his thirties took 84 short-term loans through 44 mobile apps run for 30 companies registered with the Reserve Bank of India. His bank statement shows ₹42.8 lakh arriving from those lenders. Almost all of it went straight back out to repay earlier loans from the same group of apps. By 1 October he owed ₹25.5 lakh on 36 loans still running, each due within about a month.

He never needed ₹43 lakh. His first two loans, both on 31 March, put ₹1.16 lakh in his account; the bank entries show ₹53,628 from U.Y. Fincorp and ₹62,446 from Aman Fincap that day. Everything after that was borrowing to repay.

His loan records, compiled from the lenders' app screens, give the annual rate on each loan: from 293% to 951% a year, with a median of 571%. RBI rules require a lender to give every borrower a Key Facts Statement, the one-page summary of a loan's rate and charges, before the loan contract is signed. For his first two loans, from FundoBaba and Duniya Finance, he says it was not sent to him; when he asked, he was told to look it up on the lender's website. He says he later downloaded Key Facts Statements for his loans; Oquilia has not yet seen them.

Oquilia has examined his loan-by-loan record, his account of events, his bank statements and the RBI's own public registers. Of the 84 loans, 83 appear in his bank statement as credits, to the rupee and on the day his record gives; the 84th was paid after the statement ends. What they show is not a rogue app or an unlicensed operator. It is a chain of regulated lenders, many of them running several apps each, lending again and again to a borrower whose credit report already showed the debts. Almost nothing in the RBI's rules stopped any single step.

The numbers

How it began

In March 2026, after losses in the stock market, his salary no longer covered his monthly EMIs and credit-card bills. On 31 March, the day his salary arrived, he says an agent for the app FundoBaba called him. By his account, the agent offered a loan of ₹60,000 for a year at 28% interest, with a single repayment at the end. He was asked for bank statements and the phone numbers of two colleagues as references. ₹53,628 reached his account after the processing fee and GST.

His loan record tells a different story: a term of 27 days, not a year, and an annual rate of 569%. A second app, Duniya Finance, lent him ₹62,446 the same day, repayable in 31 days.

Before the month was out, he says, agents for both apps demanded full repayment and began calling the colleagues he had named. At the end of April he repaid FundoBaba ₹76,205 and FundoBaba lent him ₹52,920 again. On 1 May the same thing happened with Duniya Finance: his statement shows ₹92,754 going out to the lender and ₹64,952 coming back in from it, the same day.

That was the pattern for the next six months.

The treadmill

Each month he borrowed almost exactly what fell due that month.

From the borrower's loan record; each month's new loans match the credits in his bank statement.

The same apps came back again and again. FundoBaba lent to him seven times, Duniya Finance six times, Snap Paisa four times.

His bank statement shows how. In 24 cases both his repayment to an app and that app's next loan appear in his HDFC account. In 19 of them, the app lent to him again on the same day he repaid it. In the other five, it lent again within three days.

Duniya Finance is the clearest case. On 1 May, 30 May and 30 June, his statement shows about ₹92,000 going out to the lender and, the same day, ₹62,000 to ₹66,000 coming back in from it as a new loan. Each turn of the wheel cost him roughly ₹27,000 to keep a loan of the same size alive.

On 29 and 30 September alone, twelve apps (Salary Setu, Dezire Loan, My Salary Loan, Salary4Sure, Naukriloans, FastSalary, Loan in Seconds, Swiftpaisa, Fund by Khera, RupeeRaftaar, CreditSea and Qualoan) each lent to him again on the day his previous loan with them fell due. (Oquilia has reported on Salary Setu before.) Where both entries are in his HDFC statement, the repayment and the new loan sit on the same date.

He says agents told him, in his words, to "somehow manage the money to repay now, and we will issue a re-loan in 2 minutes." Oquilia has not heard those calls.

What the lenders could see

The apps asked for his bank statements before lending; his own account of the first loan says so. Those statements show what he already owed. Every month from April, they record a ₹26,429 instalment on an HDFC Bank personal loan and a ₹9,544 instalment to the lender behind FlexSalary, alongside payments to other credit lines. From May onwards, they also show the app loans themselves: dozens of credits from lending companies, each followed within weeks by a larger payment back.

His credit report from CIBIL, dated 21 October 2026, which he shared with Oquilia, tells the same story from the bureau's side. His score is 783. The report records one payment up to nine days late and no default. It also shows the debt piling up: 42 active credit accounts, up from 25 two months earlier.

And it shows how rarely anyone looked. In the 90 days to 21 October, his records show 68 new loans. The report lists three credit enquiries by lenders in that period. Lenders can check other credit bureaus, or run checks that do not appear as enquiries; Oquilia has seen only his CIBIL report.

The RBI requires a lender to record a borrower's income "with a view to assessing the borrower's creditworthiness". Thirty lenders did so, and lent.

What the apps asked for

Applying for a loan meant handing over far more than a salary slip. Screenshots of one WhatsApp exchange he shared, from 29 September to 3 October, show a contact who introduced himself as being "from daksh money" asking for three months of bank statements, two payslips, a utility bill, his PAN and Aadhaar, a selfie holding his PAN card, two references "with relation", an alternate phone number, and his office address and office e-mail. "Your cibil is ok i have check," the contact wrote, before any document had arrived.

When the app's video check would not record, the contact sent a script for a video instead: "I am taking loan for 38,000/- from daksh money promising that will pay on time." The borrower recorded it. The contact then asked for a full-screen picture of his work e-mail, and two days later for a "company mail id des bord screen short full screen". He sent his employee identity card instead, as the contact had offered. His loan records list no loan from Daksh Money; in the chat, the contact says on 3 October that the money had not reached him.

The lenders also wrote to his work address. Screenshots of his employer's mail quarantine show repayment reminders, "pre-closure" offers and a festival offer from four lenders' domains, held back by the company's filter, which marked some as spam and others as phishing. Those labels are the filter's own judgement; they say nothing about what the messages contained.

One company, many apps

The borrower thought he was dealing with dozens of separate lenders. The RBI's own directory of digital lending apps, which lenders must file with the regulator, shows otherwise.

• Naman Finlease Private Limited has 16 apps listed under it. He borrowed through six of them: Dhanvarsha, Fingo Loan, RupeeRaftaar, FundsBull, Zaylo Loan and Qualoan.
• Ampire Finance Private Limited has nine. He borrowed through at least five: Snap Paisa, Salary Adda, Salary Setu, F1 Speed Loan and Fast Paise.
• Pawansut Holdings Limited has eight, including Salary4Sure and Minutes Loan, both of which lent to him.
• One technology company, Fintech Cloud Private Limited, runs the apps for five of the lenders he borrowed from.

On 30 September 2026, closing another salaried professional's complaints, the RBI's complaint cell recorded that the loan agreements Ampire Finance and Naman Finlease relied on did not permit them to contact his employer, and referred both matters to RBI supervision (read the report).

All 30 lenders hold a valid RBI registration as non-banking financial companies. None appears on the RBI's list of cancelled registrations.

Three apps he borrowed through do not appear in the RBI's directory under any lender: Swiftpaisa, salarybaba and Rupee4u. The companies his loan records name as the lenders behind those apps, Jupiter Management Services, Transactree Technologies and Mayurdeep Ornaments, have no app listed under them in that directory. Transactree is registered as a peer-to-peer lending platform; in May 2025 the RBI fined it ₹40 lakh for breaking the rules for such platforms.

What the rules say, and what they don't

The borrower believes the RBI caps how much of a salary can go on loan repayments. It does not, for him. The only such cap, 50% of monthly household income, applies to microfinance loans to households earning up to ₹3 lakh a year.

Nor is there a ceiling on interest rates. What the rules do say:

• Before lending, find out who the borrower is. A lender must collect the borrower's age, occupation and income "with a view to assessing the borrower's creditworthiness", and keep it on record (RBI Credit Facilities Directions, para 8(1)). The rules require the information to be recorded. They do not require a lender to refuse a borrower who is already deep in debt.
• Rates can be "excessive". The RBI's conduct rules say that "rates of interest beyond a certain level may be seen to be excessive and can neither be sustainable nor be conforming to normal financial practice" (Responsible Business Conduct Directions, para 25). The rules leave each lender's board to set its own rates.
• No charges outside the Key Facts Statement. Any fee not in the KFS cannot be charged without the borrower's explicit consent (para 29(5)).
• Hands off the borrower's colleagues. Lenders and their agents must not harass borrowers, including acts "intended to humiliate publicly or intrude upon the privacy of the debtors' family members, referees and friends" (para 100). Apps must not access a phone's contact list or call logs (Credit Facilities Directions, para 13(1)).
• The lender answers for its app. An NBFC remains "fully responsible and liable for all acts and omissions" of the company running its app (para 6(7)).

Nothing in the rules stops one lender's loan being used to repay another's. Nothing limits how many lenders may lend to one person at once. The RBI's rules on "evergreening" target a lender hiding bad loans in its own books, not a borrower being moved from one app to the next.

The cost to him

By late August, the borrower writes, he could no longer see a way out and had begun to think about ending his life. He decided instead to put together every statement, every loan record and every message, and send them to journalists.

He is not asking for his debts to be written off. He wants, he says, to stop the same thing happening to others.

If you are struggling, help is free and available at any hour: Tele-MANAS, the Government of India helpline, on 14416 or 1-800-891-4416; AASRA on +91 98204 66726. In an emergency, call 112.

If you are caught in a loop like this

• Stop taking new loans to repay old ones. Each one adds a new fee and a new due date.
• Write to each lender's grievance officer about any charge not in your Key Facts Statement, and about any contact with your employer or colleagues. If there is no reply in 30 days, or you are not satisfied, complain to the RBI at cms.rbi.org.in.
• Report threats, or messages to your contacts, at cybercrime.gov.in or on 1930.
• Check every app against the RBI's directory of digital lending apps, and the lender at sachet.rbi.org.in. Oquilia's digital lending enforcement tracker lists the RBI's actions against lenders and apps.
• Keep everything: every message, call log, e-mail and statement.

Related reporting

• Loan apps e-mailed his employer: more than 1,250 borrowers exposed
• RBI refers two loan app lenders to its supervisors after they contacted the employer of a borrower
• Digital lending enforcement tracker
• All Oquilia coverage of NBFCs

Frequently asked questions

Can a loan app give me a new loan to repay an old one? Yes. Nothing in the RBI's rules forbids it. Lenders must record your income and assess your creditworthiness before lending, but the rules do not require them to refuse you because you already owe other lenders.

What interest rate do payday loan apps in India charge? In this borrower's loan records, the annual rates ranged from 293% to 951%, with a median of 571%. The RBI does not cap interest rates for these lenders. It says rates beyond a certain level "may be seen to be excessive".

Is there a limit on how much of my salary can go on loan repayments? Only for microfinance: households earning up to ₹3 lakh a year cannot be lent more than 50% of monthly household income in repayments. Salaried borrowers above that income have no such cap.

Can a loan app call my office or my colleagues? RBI rules bar lenders and their agents from harassing a borrower's family, referees or friends, from calling outside 8 am to 7 pm, and from making threatening calls. Digital lending apps must not access your phone's contact list. Report breaches to the lender's grievance officer, then to cms.rbi.org.in, and threats to cybercrime.gov.in or 1930.

How do I check whether a loan app is genuine? Look the app up in the RBI's directory of digital lending apps to see which registered lender stands behind it, and check that lender at sachet.rbi.org.in.

How this was reported

Oquilia examined the borrower's loan-by-loan summary of 84 loans, his written chronology, his bank statements, his CIBIL credit report of 21 October 2026 and screenshots of messages from the lenders and their agents. Each loan's amount, dates and rate are from his loan records, which he compiled from the lenders' apps; Oquilia has not yet seen the Key Facts Statements. 83 of the 84 loan amounts were matched, to the rupee and the date, to credits in his HDFC Bank savings account statement for 30 March to 30 September 2026; 30 of the 49 repayments due in that period were matched to debits in the same account, and the rest were paid from a second account whose statement Oquilia has requested. The status of every lender is from the RBI's list of registered NBFCs as on 30 September 2026 and its list of cancelled registrations; the apps listed under each lender are from the RBI's directory of digital lending apps as accessed on 24 October 2026. RBI rules are quoted from the current directions on rbi.org.in. The borrower's name, employer and city are withheld at his request.

Right of reply

Every company named in this article is invited to respond. If any figure, date or description is inaccurate, write to editor@oquilia.com with the correcting document, and we will publish the correction or the response in full alongside this article.