April 6, 2023
| By Mitria Spotser | Center for Responsible Lending
As we celebrate passage of the Fair Housing Act over 50 years ago, we can’t lose sight of the work that remains for our nation to achieve housing justice.
April 4, 2023
| By Margaret Coker & Mollie Simon | GPB News
In South Dakota, for instance, a citizen-led referendum in 2014 led to the passage of a 36% annual interest rate cap for financial products sold in the state. Title lenders stopped doing business there, but new credit lenders stepped in, and consumers ended up with more choice and lower interest rates, according to a four-year economic study conducted by the Center for Responsible Lending. “The only group that lost in this scenario were the title lenders,” said Steve Hinkey, a South Dakota pastor who as a then-Republican lawmaker spearheaded the referendum.
April 4, 2023
| By Bonnie Sinnock | National Mortgage News
The move made by the government-sponsored enterprises' overseer is right in line with its recommendation, and affordable housing groups like the Center for Responsible Lending and the National Housing Conference also have backed it.
March 31, 2023
| By Ann Carrns | The New York Times
More than a dozen commercial websites already offer credit card comparison tools. But the sites often work with a relatively narrow range of large issuers, consumer advocates say, and earn fees when shoppers apply for a card. (Most sites disclose this.) Offerings from smaller banks and credit unions, which may charge lower rates, may not be included.
March 29, 2023
| By Emily Stewart | Vox
These companies can also wind up making money when consumers who use them make mistakes, Chabrier noted. “If you have, as many people do, five buy now pay later purchases and you make one false move, then you’re going to get hit with these unexpected fees,” she said, such as late fees if you miss a payment, “and maybe an overdraft fee from your bank.”
March 27, 2023
| By Lynn Bonner | NC Policy Watch
Blue Cross agreed in 1998 to the conversion law that included the provision for a charity trust should it become a for-profit company. Martin Eakes, co-founder of the Self-Help Credit Union and the Center for Responsible Lending helped negotiate the 1998 law. He opposes the new bill. “This bill is a betrayal of the public trust,” Eakes said.
March 23, 2023
| By Steve Ahlquist | Uprise RI
In Rhode Island, people have been advocating for over 13 years against the practice of payday loans, which are high-cost loans structured to perpetuate an ongoing cycle of debt. As the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) explains, “payday lenders are actually providing access to debt, not credit.”
March 16, 2023
“The Biden-Harris Administration is providing needed breathing room in the tight budgets of families who use FHA mortgages, many of whom are first-time homebuyers, people of color, or individuals with lower-incomes,” said Mitria Spotser, vice president and federal policy director at the Center for Responsible Lending. “By reducing the cost of mortgage insurance premiums, the Administration is putting money back into people’s pockets. This move helps families strengthen their financial backstop and manage unexpected financial events while maintaining homeownership.
March 8, 2023
| By Karl Evers-Hillstrom, Aris Folley | The Hill
Mitria Wilson-Spotser, vice president and federal policy director at the Center for Responsible Lending, made a similar argument, while also raising concerns about the impact the risks posed to policies such as the Qualified Mortgage rule.
“The reason we have this housing appreciation, the reason why we have homeownership rates at the rate that we do in the United States today is because of that rule,” she told The Hill, while also saying she thinks “everything is up for play” if the Supreme Court ultimately rules against the CFPB’s funding structure in the case.
March 8, 2023
| By Zoe Sagalow, Syed Muhammad Ghaznavi | S&P Global Market Intelligence
The bank's overdraft fee income came under fire in an Aug. 23, 2022, letter from the Center for Responsible Lending, or CRL, and other consumer advocates to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency urging the regulators to reject the planned merger. The CRL rarely presses regulators to strike down specific bank deal proposals.
