Payday and Other Small Dollar Loans

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...

Consumer installment loans offered by nonbank lenders can be an expensive form of credit that keeps borrowers in costly long-term debt. Lenders offer these loans to individuals for their personal or household use. Consumers borrow between $1,000 to $25,000 or more. Many states regulate the costs and other terms of these loans, usually requiring them to be repaid monthly over...

The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) submitted an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit to correct the lower court’s misinterpretation of a Colorado law, and the federal law on which it is based, in order to prohibit out-of-state banks from helping lenders charge Colorado borrowers interest rates...

The Problem High-cost lenders are ignoring state law and continuing to lend high above the state's legal interest rates, using a practice called Rent-A-Bank. In some cases, these rates are under 36% on very large loans. In others, rates are in the triple-digits, charging consumers up to 200% to finance car repairs, furniture, and even puppies. How Rent-A-Bank Works In...

The Center for Responsible Lending, the National Consumer Law Center, and Consumer Federation of America commend the CFPB for affirming that paycheck advance loans, regardless of their characterization by lenders, are credit products subject to federal disclosure requirements. As written, the proposed interpretive rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding the applicability of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA)...

The consumer, labor, civil rights, legal services and community organizations wrote with strong support of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed interpretive rule on emerging paycheck advance products, sometimes marketed as “earned wage” products.

These organizations support the CFPB’s conclusion that accounts used to access BNPL credit are credit cards that must comply with credit card rules governing disputes, errors, periodic statements and disclosures. Those protections will enhance the safety of BNPL credit and make it easier for consumers to manage their finances.

The Center for Responsible Lending submitted a comment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on their interpretive rule regarding Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) digital user accounts.

The 193 labor, civil rights, consumer, legal services and community groups and academics joined in this letter to express opposition to the draft Earned Wage Access Consumer Act. In the guise of offering protections, the bill obscures its true effect: to exempt fintech cash advances from the Truth in Lending Act, to endorse a form of loan that makes workers...

Consumers who took out small loans using cash advance apps paid triple-digit annual interest rates, experienced high levels of repeat reborrowing, and incurred more bank overdraft fees.