Lost Opportunities: How OppFi Traps Borrowers in Unaffordable Debt
Read our new analysis of borrowers caught in an unaffordable cycle of refinancing, including instances of refinancing two to three months after taking out an OppFi loan.
Payday, car-title, and similar high-cost loans, typically with interest rates of 100% APR and higher, trap people in crippling long-term debt. CRL advocates for regulators to require lenders to verify borrowers can afford to repay a loan before that loan is issued. CRL also advocates for interest rate caps of no higher than 36% APR and for enforcement of current usury laws.
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November 2025 EarnIn Study Shows the Harms of Payday Loan Apps (“EWA”)
A recent study analyzing data from EarnIn’s Cash Out product has been promoted as evidence that the payday lending app marketed as earned wage access (“EWA”) improves workers’ financial stability by increasing income. A closer reading of the study, however, reveals the opposite: the reported income increase is likely driven by workers supplying more labor, while the payday lending app...
Escape from the Debt Trap: Relief for Minnesotans After State Ends Payday Lending
Minnesotans had been charged a 220% APR on the typical storefront payday loan, but this predatory form of credit ended in 2024 when a strong interest rate cap went into effect.
Statewide Poverty Action Network and CRL Testify at Washington Legislature Work Session on Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)
Nadine Chabrier, CRL Senior Policy Counsel, teamed up with Molly Gallagher, Statewide Poverty Action Network Policy Lead, to talk to Washington state representatives about the importance of examining BNPL policy during the affordability crisis. Watch the full video to see Molly Gallagher's presentation and more.
Buried In Debt: High-Cost Credit Products Harm Working Coloradans
Original research about Colorado borrowers shows expensive credit is already burying people in debt, debunking argument for legalizing even costlier credit.
Labor, Civil Rights, Consumer, Legal Services and Community Groups and Academics Oppose Any Bill that Exempts Earned Wage Payday Loans from the Truth in Lending Act (TILA)
Nearly 200 labor, consumer, civil rights, and community organizations joined together to express opposition to any bill, similar to last year’s H.R. 7428 (Steil), that exempts earned wage payday loans from the Truth in Lending Act (TILA). Doing so would endorse a form of loan that makes workers pay to be paid and would facilitate new evasions by payday lenders...
State-by-State Action on Payday Loan Apps
Payday loan app companies try to evade state credit laws by promoting a legal fiction: they claim that these loans are not loans. As state regulators and attorneys general investigate and challenge industry violations of credit law, these lenders have lobbied state legislatures for exemptions from those laws. This state law chart serves as a shorthand guide to state regulation...
Nickel and Dimed: How Payday Loan Apps Drain Workers’ Pay and How to Stop Them
Payday loan apps draw borrowers into a pattern of repeated borrowing and a succession of fees that pull from already-stretched paychecks, creating demand for the next loan.
Escalating Debt: The Real Impact of Payday Loan Apps Sold as Earned Wage Advances (EWA)
Our new report shows that people who take out these loans experience steep costs as well as increasing financial stress due to increased use over time.
Payday Loan Apps
Payday loan apps offer small, short-term loans that are typically repaid on the consumers’ next payday. These products are sometimes called Earned Wage Advance, Early Wage Access, or EWA but few merit this name. Research by CRL and others has demonstrated using these apps leave many consumers worse off - paying high fees for small loans, increasing their risk of...