WASHINGTON, DC – Today, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, who was unlawfully appointed to also be Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), announced that the CFPB would reopen its rule on payday and car-title loans. This is Mulvaney’s first formal step toward trying to eliminate planned CFPB protections against the payday loan debt trap.

Rebecca Borné, Senior Policy Counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) issued the following statement:

The human devastation caused by payday loans, which average nearly 400 percent APR, has been extensively documented. For more than five years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau studied the issue, welcomed public input, and crafted a rule to help stop the payday loan debt trap.

Mick Mulvaney is on record supporting elimination of this protection, is closely tied to payday lenders, and has repeatedly tried to destroy the consumer bureau. With this background, today’s announcement is clearly chumming for payday loan sharks to kill the rule.

For more information, or to arrange an interview with a CRL spokesperson on this issue, please contact Matthew Kravitz at matthew.kravitz@responsiblelending.org or 202-349-1859.