CRL in the News
Four consumer advocacy groups have filed a motion seeking leave to file an amicus memorandum opposing the joint motion filed by the CFPB and two trade groups that seeks a stay of the compliance date for the CFPB’s final payday/auto title/high-rate installment loan rule (Payday Rule). The joint motion, which was filed in the trade groups’ April 2018 lawsuit challenging the Payday Rule, also seeks a stay of the litigation for the duration of the CFPB’s rulemaking to reconsider the Payday Rule.
The Center for Responsible Lending and other groups contend in their briefs that courts should step in “where the market for consumer loans fails to produce socially tolerable terms” — and that CashCall’s loans, with high rates and payments stretched out for years, are simply not acceptable.
"It's the same predatory lending schemes in a different packages," said Diane Standaert, director of state policy at the Center for Responsible Lending. "What has remained unchanged for all these years is that the debt trap remains the core of the business model."
“It’s the same predatory lending schemes in a different package,” said Diane Standaert, director of state policy at the Center for Responsible Lending. “What has remained unchanged for all these years is that the debt trap remains the core of the business model.”
About 900 South Carolina payday and auto-title lenders made more than a million such loans in 2015, the latest year tallied by the Durham-based Center for Responsible Lending. The 128,000 borrowers paid an average annual percentage rate of 390% on a $391 loan borrowed for two weeks. The number of loans made to North Carolinians is not tracked, but clearly tens of thousands made the trek across the state line, helping make South Carolina the 12th-biggest payday-lending state. It ranks 24th in population.
Before turning to a fast-cash lender, run through your options, says Scott Astrada, federal advocacy director at the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending.
The Center for Responsible Lending — which sponsored Assembly Bill 2500 — said lawmakers wilted and succumbed to the financial industry’s heavy lobbying.
“Assembly members just signaled to predatory lenders that it’s OK to target distressed Californians into taking out abusive loans,” the nonprofit’s policy director Graciela Aponte-Diaz said. “People around California and across the country want protections from these loan shark products — they’ve made their voices heard time and time again.”
"We are opposed to the proposal just simply because we don't feel like the rates need to be raised at this time, at a time when banks are experiencing record profits," said Kelly Tornow, director of North Carolina policy for the Center for Responsible Lending.
El presidente Donald Trump, empoderado por el voto de 234 representantes de la Cámara Baja del Congreso estadounidense, firmó esta semana una ley federal que alienta la discriminación racial en el financiamiento de la compra de autos, al bloquear regulaciones impuestas años atrás por la Oficina de Protección Financiera del Consumidor.
But some consumer advocates were quick to caution that it remains to be seen how banks will tailor their new offerings - and what the OCC will allow. There's no official cap at a federal level on the interest rates banks can charge, but research has shown that anything above 36% is difficult for most borrowers to afford, said Rebecca Borne, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit group.