Payday and Other Small Dollar Loans

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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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...

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...

CRL Comments on Innovative NY Buy-Now, Pay-Later (BNPL) Law

CRL responded to the New York Department of Financial Services Request for Information Regarding Buy Now Pay Later, which requested comments from industry and interested parties on the “Buy-Now-Pay-Later Act" (L.2025, c. 58, Part Y, New York Banking Law Article 14-B). This law represents an essential step towards better protecting New York consumers from financial harm. Specifically, the Act provides...

Payday Loan Apps: States Should Regulate As Credit, Protect Consumers

Payday loan apps issue small, short-term loans that are typically repaid on the consumer’s next payday either directly from a bank account or as a payroll deduction. 1 Lenders market these loans as a means for workers to make ends meet between paychecks. In reality, workers who are already living paycheck-to-paycheck may find themselves pulled into a cycle of reborrowing...

Comment on Buy-Now, Pay-Later Unsecured Debt

In this comment, CRL applauds the Department of Housing and Urban Development for taking a critical first step in better understanding buy-now, pay-later financing effects by soliciting information from the general public and all concerned stakeholders. For the reasons discussed in this response, CRL believes that this important step should be followed, however, by focused research into the relationship between...

Local & National Advocates Urge Maryland Governor to Veto Bill Authorizing Predatory Lending Apps

45 local and national advocates from across the country, including 20 from Maryland, urge Maryland’s Governor to veto HB1294, a bill that gives app-based payday lenders a special exemption from state laws that prohibit lending that is discriminatory, is deceptive, or carries extremely high interest rates.
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