Ad Campaigns
LoanTap Launches Campaign to Educate Public on Dangers of Fake Loan Apps
Mumbai: LoanTap, a digital platform, has taken an innovative approach to raising awareness about the rise of fake loan applications and predatory lending practices. The company has launched a video campaign that played across PVR cinema screens, coupled with volunteers present to answer questions from viewers.
The move comes amid increasing reports of unsuspecting consumers being trapped by fraudulent loan apps that charge exorbitant interest rates and fees or resort to harassment and data privacy violations to recover payments. Many of these apps are not registered with the Reserve Bank of India.
The video campaign highlights the influx of SMS clickbaits and the risks of clicking unsecured links without verifying the source. It also emphasizes the importance of checking if a lender is registered with the RBI (Reserve Bank of India). The campaign exposes the modus operandi of fake lending apps – outrageous interest rates hidden in dense terms and conditions, and unauthorized access to phone contacts and data.
After the impactful videos were screened, LoanTap volunteers were stationed at cinema exits to distribute literature on spotting fake loan apps, answer questions, and guide people on taking proper legal recourse if they had already been exploited by such apps.
The rise of fake loan apps is a growing menace in India. The RBI has identified more than 600 illegal loan apps available on various app stores for Android users in 2021 alone. The government has already blocked 27 such apps, and the Google Play Store removed over 205 illegal loan apps as of November 2021.
The RBI has compiled a comprehensive booklet titled “BE(A)WARE,” which provides practical information to help people safeguard themselves against fraudulent transactions. The booklet covers various fraud scenarios, including fake loan advertisements, SMS/email/call scams, OTP-based frauds, fake loan websites, and loans with forged documents. It emphasizes the importance of keeping personal and financial information confidential, being cautious about unknown calls/emails/messages, and practising due diligence during financial transactions.
“While the digital lending landscape has grown considerably, it has also given rise to illegal lending apps preying on the vulnerabilities of unsuspecting borrowers. At LoanTap, we uphold the highest ethical standards and prioritize customer protection. This awareness campaign is a crucial step in empowering individuals to recognize the warning signs of fraudulent loan apps before they fall victim to their deceptive tactics and find themselves trapped in a cycle of debt,” stated LoanTap chief risk officer Rajeev Das.
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
