Payday and Other Small Dollar Loans

CRL Response to “Reframing the Debate about Payday Lending by Liberty Street Economics” Research Comment On: "Do Defaults on Payday Loans Matter?" by Robert Mann Research Comment On: "Payday Loan Rollovers and Consumer Welfare" CRL Critique of “Payday Holiday: How Households Fare After Payday Credit Bans” by Donald P. Morgan and Michael R. Strain CRL Review of "Defining and Detecting...

A recent poll conducted by Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting finds overwhelming bipartisan support for strong regulation of financial services and products in order to hold financial services companies accountable and protect consumers against unfair practices. By wide margins, Americans call for tough oversight and regulation of Wall Street banks, mortgage companies and credit card servicers, as well...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has proposed a new national rule that addresses payday and car title lending. The proposal, as written, has some useful elements, but it is seriously undermined by several major loopholes. If the loopholes aren’t closed in the final version, the rule could essentially permit payday predators to conduct business as usual. What We Can...

A recent blog post by Liberty Street Economics, Reframing the Debate about Payday Lending, mischaracterizes the debate around payday lending and downplays the harms done to vulnerable consumers. Payday lenders and their allies have referenced the blog to justify their ongoing efforts to delay and weaken much needed regulation at both the state and federal level. The Center for Responsible...

The proposed rule takes the right general approach by establishing an ability-to-repay principle – including consideration of income and expenses – at its core. This is extremely significant; while a long-standing tenet of responsible lending, it is one ignored by these abusive industries driven by unaffordable loans. It is a particularly important standard for high-cost loans where lenders have the...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is widely expected to soon propose a new national rule that addresses payday and car title lending. If strong enough, the rule has the potential to rein in the worst abuses of these kinds of high-cost loans, which carry triple-digit interest rates. Payday lenders are pushing for loopholes in the rule that would make...

This memo summarizes the findings from a statewide poll of 501 likely 2016 general election voters in Colorado. Only those registered voters who had participated in a past general election were invited to participate, as well as any new registrants since the November 2012 election. View the polling questions and topline results. (PDF)

This letter commends Representative Wasserman Schultz for cosponsoring the Stopping Abuse and Fraud in Electronic (SAFE) Lending Act of 2016 and urges her to withdraw support from H.R. 4018. That bill would export the problematic "Florida model" of payday lending laws to the rest of the country. Florida's payday laws are riddled with loopholes: the average borrower is saddled with...

This letter urges the Bureau to establish a strong rule addressing payday, car title, and similar loans. It focuses on the migration of payday and car title lenders to long-term loans that keep borrowers trapped in prolonged unaffordable debt. This migration is already well underway in the states where long-term, high-rate loans are permitted, and lenders are already aggressively seeking...

New CRL research confirms that over the past decade, a Florida law that was enacted to protect Florida consumers from the predatory harms of payday lending has done the exact opposite. Instead, since 2005 payday loan borrowers in the Sunshine State have spent over $2.5 billion in payday loan fees. Further, Florida's senior citizens and consumers of color are the...