CRL in the News

"If the administration was serious about protecting consumers, the president would have nominated someone qualified last January instead of someone unqualified in June — just days before the CFPB nomination deadline," Yana Miles, senior legislative counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending, said in a statement Sunday.

According to a data sheet prepared by the Center for Responsible Lending the APR charged by these lenders, including Check N Go, can range from a merely crushing 533 percent to a truly awful 792 percent.

“The consumer bureau, under the direction of Mick Mulvaney, should never have made this transparent attempt to destroy an important consumer protection around payday lending," four consumer groups — Public Citizen, the Center for Responsible Lending, the National Consumer Law Center, and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund — said in a joint statement. "We’re heartened that a federal judge...

These loans are called "payday" because you're supposed to pay them back as soon as you get paid. In fact, if you don't have a job, you can't get one. Borrowers tend to be young and lower middle class. The loans are typically not used for crack or heroin or broken bones or other unforeseen problems, but for baby food...

“Mick Mulvaney and the payday lenders tried an end-run around the law, and it was rightly rejected. Today’s ruling is a win for consumers,” Will Corbett, litigation counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, said in a statement.

On the homeownership front, research by the Center for Responsible Lending has found that Black and Latino mortgage borrowers are disproportionately dependent upon FHA financing, and still have scant access to the most affordable and sustainable mortgages – 30-year fixed rate conventional ones. This heavy reliance on FHA financing even includes upper income Blacks and Latinos who could be eligible...

Proponents argue that raising the asset threshold at which banks are subject to enhanced regulatory standards, including stress tests that gauge a bank’s ability to withstand economic conditions like those that led to the 2008 financial crisis, would help small and regional banks. But the bill actually helps very large banks with up to $250 billion in assets. This is...

Among consumer advocates, Mulvaney’s actions are as unprecedented as they are bizarre. For more than a decade, research by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has consistently found that these small-dollar loans pick the pockets of working people at a rate of $8 billion in fees ever year.

These fees cost consumers an estimated $14 billion a year, according to consumer watchdogs. Often, consumers are charged several fees, which average $35 each, within a short time period, according to research by the Center for Responsible Lending.

New research by the Center for Responsible Lending finds that today’s racial wealth gaps were supported and sustained by the federal government’s Fair Housing Administration (FHA). From the program’s inception during the 1930s, FHA perpetuated racial discrimination by making mortgage credit broadly available to white borrowers while excluding blacks and other people of color.