Press Releases
June 22, 2017
Joint Statement by:Michael Calhoun, President, Center for Responsible Lending
Lindsay Daniels, Manager, Wealth-Building Initiative, Economic Policy Project, National Council of La Raza (NCLR)
Lisa Donner, Executive Director, Americans for Financial Reform
Rich DuBois, Executive Director, National Consumer Law Center
Tom Feltner, Director of Financial Services, Consumer Federation of America
Karl Frisch, Executive Director, Allied Progress
Wade Henderson, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights
Edmund Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director &...
June 2, 2017
One year ago, CFPB issued a proposed rule to stop the debt trap.
Today, Congress seeks to advance bill to gut CFPB and give a free pass to payday lenders.
The CFPB's ability to issue a strong rule against the abuses of 300% payday loans is exactly why Congress should be defending the CFPB, not attacking it.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Consumer advocates and civil rights organizations are calling on Congress to let the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finish its job of finalizing a strong rule on payday and car-title lending. A year ago today, people from across the country...
May 31, 2017
OAKLAND, Calif. – AB 784, a bill to curb abuses by lenders charging more than 100% interest on loans of more than $2,500, was stalled in the Assembly Appropriations Committee last Friday, effectively preventing the proposal from moving forward to a floor vote.
Earlier last week, Assembly Banking Committee Chair and author of the bill, Matt Dababneh (D-Encino), proposed a set of amendments that would have greatly limited the bill's protections by exempting car-title loans and loans that could be targeting small business. Dababneh's provisions would have allowed lenders to charge borrowers...
May 16, 2017
Faith and Credit Roundtable Calls Community to Action as Congress Threatens to Tie Hands of Consumer Agency
DURHAM, N.C. — As the U.S. House of Representatives moves a bill that would roll back key consumer protections put into place after the 2008 financial crisis, the Faith & Credit Roundtable is calling on people of faith across the country to demand that Members of Congress support reform of predatory payday lending. The Faith & Credit Roundtable is an interfaith coalition that seeks to end predatory lending's harmful impact on economically vulnerable families....
April 24, 2017
WASHINGTON, DC – House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) recently released text of the so-called Financial CHOICE Act 2.0, his plan to repeal and replace the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The Chairman’s legislation would prevent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from regulating payday and car-title lenders. This is a new provision that was not in last year’s version of the bill. The Financial CHOICE Act 2.0 is scheduled to have a hearing on this Wednesday, April 26th.
Section 733 of the CHOICE Act 2.0 discussion draft:
(t) NO AUTHORITY TO...
April 4, 2017
Consumer Advocates Question FinTech Company’s High Default Rates, Triple Digit Interest Rates
Consumer advocates criticized the high interest rates and high default rates of Elevate Credit, Inc. (Elevate), an online lender that is expected to soon have an initial public offering. In its recent filing with the SEC, Elevate cited several risks to potential investors, including “regulatory limitations on the products we can offer and markets we can serve.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is currently developing a rule on small dollar loans.
"Elevate charges its customers an...
March 21, 2017
Assemblymember Kalra's AB 1109 would cap high-cost loans at 24%
Today, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) applauded California Assemblymember Ash Kalra’s (D-San Jose) introduction of AB 1109, the Safe Consumer Lending Act, a bill to cap an annual percentage rate (APR) at 24% plus origination fee for consumer loans of $2,500 to $10,000. Currently, California has no APR limit for installment loans of $2,500 to $10,000, which gives predatory lenders the opportunity to charge borrowers interest rates of 100% APR or more. The legislation has support from civil rights leader Dolores Huerta...
March 21, 2017
Hearing Uses Debunked Arguments as Cover for Favoring Payday Lenders, Financial Predators Over Working Families
Today, the House Committee on Financial Services’ Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing on the design of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Since its inception in 2010, the independent CFPB has provided 29 million Americans harmed by financial companies with a total of nearly $12 billion in restitution and it has helped thousands of families across America resolve disputes with unscrupulous lenders.
Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) Senior...
January 3, 2017
The California Supreme Court recently ruled against payday lenders who try to use tribal sovereignty to avoid state licensing and consumer protection laws.
In 2007, the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO)—then called the Department of Corporations—filed a suit alleging that private payday lenders such as Ameriloan and OneClickCash, each affiliated with the Miami Nation of Oklahoma or the Nebraska-based Santee Sioux Nation, had violated the law by lending without state licenses and charging excessive fees.
The payday lenders had previously won lower court rulings before the...
December 9, 2016
Targeting Borrowers of Color Only Widens the Racial Wealth Gap
The California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) published a new research report this week that shows payday loan stores in the state are disproportionately located in heavily African American and Latino neighborhoods (PDF). Combined, African Americans and Latinos make up almost 44% of the state's total population--and in those communities, on average, nearly 60% had six or more payday loan stores compared to white communities at 28%.
DBO's research reflects a 2009 report by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) that...