CRL in the News

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.

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, mortgages and car payments. These loans are holes in dams that risk overflowing. The most common type of borrower is a white woman, often single mothers. And, says Carol Hammerstein, spokesperson for the Center for Responsible Lending, "payday lenders locate in neighborhoods

“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.

“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 rejected Mulvaney’s attempt, in partnership with predatory payday lenders, to evade the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act."

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 for conventional lending. Further, as many banks have withdrawn from the mortgage market, non-depository lending has increased. By 2016, eight of the top 10 FHA lenders were non-depositories.

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.

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 not a consumer friendly bill. The Center for Responsible Lending, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization opposed the bill argues that, “Instead of threatening the American economy with one gallon of poison or two, Congress should

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.

The Center for Responsible Lending, an organization that calls for more safeguards for consumers, found in 2015 that payday loan storefronts in Ohio advertised rates of more than 600 percent annual percentage rate. Diane Standaert, director of state policy, said that since that time some storefronts now reflect rates between 300 and 400 percent for some loans. "But this is basically comparing the differences between (1) a very bad loan, and (2) another very bad loan," she said.

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.