Press Releases

"Jack Kemp had many accomplishments: NFL quarterback, member of Congress, secretary of HUD, Republican vice presidential nominee. Driving his public service was an unwavering belief that each and every person deserves a chance to succeed. He was a longtime civil rights advocate and champion of home ownership, most recently fighting an uphill battle for policies that would help millions of financially stressed families avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. He helped move the ball forward. We will miss him." For more information: Kathleen Day at (202) 349-1871 or kathleen.day

We commend the U.S. House of Representatives for taking this important step toward ending credit card industry practices that Americans across the board find unfair. Interest rates and fees should be transparent, reasonably related to risk and presented to cardholders up-front. And credit card companies should not be allowed to arbitrarily change them, especially retroactively. Today's bipartisan vote is encouraging, and we hope the Senate will act quickly to pass similar legislation now before it. Reforming credit card lending practices is long overdue. Making those reforms effective as

The Senate today voted down the one common-sense solution that would have prevented over a million families from losing their homes to foreclosure ? allowing bankruptcy judges to modify home loans to fair market terms. This measure would have encouraged mortgage servicers to voluntarily restructure mortgages to make them affordable in much greater numbers, saving up to 1.7 million families from foreclosure. It also would have saved their neighbors from losing an additional $300 billion in reduced property values caused by these preventable foreclosures. The banking industry, after receiving

The federal debate on payday lending practices is heating up. A bill in the House, H.R. 1214, features measures intended to reform abusive payday lending but that have failed at the state level to curb loan flipping practices that trap the financially vulnerable. By contrast, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (S. 500) and California Rep. Jackie Speier (H.R. 1608) have introduced common-sense bills that would restore consumer protections by placing a 36 percent annual interest-rate cap on consumer loans. The Center for Responsible Lending supports S. 500 and H.R. 1608. CRL's research shows that

"Today the House Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee will hold a hearing on H.R. 1214, the Payday Loan Reform Act. We commend Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who chairs this Subcommittee and introduced the bill, for his long history of working for economic fairness and financial reform and his interest in addressing payday lending, a practice that frustrates the efforts of low-income families to recover from a cash shortfall and get back on firm financial ground. We continue to oppose the provisions of HR 1214 because they do not address the fundamental problems with

A CRL survey published today finds high levels of support for an annual interest rate cap on consumer loans of no higher than 36 percent. Three out of four Americans with an opinion think that Congress should cap interest rates at some level, and 72 percent think that level should be no higher than 36 percent. http://qa.crl.w.lmdagency.net/research-publication/interest-rate-survey Such a cap has been introduced in both the U.S. Senate and House as one strategy for helping to restore the health of our economy and financial systems. Senator Dick Durbin, (D-IL) introduced S500 in late February

Payday stores concentrate in African-American, Latino neighborhoods Race, ethnicity leading factor in determining payday lender location, but not banks' Payday lenders are nearly eight times more concentrated in California's African-American and Latino neighborhoods as compared to white neighborhoods, draining these communities of $247 million in payday loan fees according to new research from the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). A disparity remains even after accounting for factors like income, poverty rates and education. Federal legislation could address problems with predatory payday

Download Survey Findings U.S consumers overwhelmingly want to be asked their preference before a bank or credit union enrolls them in a program to cover debit card purchases when they do not have the funds, a new Center for Responsible Lending survey finds. Financial institutions typically enroll their customers in a system that covers debit card overdrafts and then assesses them an average $34 fee for each transaction, often on the purchase of an item that costs less than the fee itself. The new survey finds that most people would rather be asked if they want to be in such a program in the

Statement of Mike Calhoun, President, Center for Responsible Lending The Center for Responsible Lending commends Bank of America for its decision to stop charging overdraft fees on debit card purchases. With this change, Bank of America—which issues more debit cards than any other bank— joins another banking giant, Citibank, in practicing responsible debit card overdraft policies. Most other large banks typically charge a $35 fee on an average debit card overdraft of only $17—an exorbitant cost for credit that the bank automatically repays itself only days later from the customer's next

Center for Responsible Lending's president, Michael Calhoun, on the House approval of H.R. 1106, which makes court relief on mortgages available for financially distressed homeowners: "We applaud lawmakers in the House for passing legislation that is a crucial piece of the broader White House plan to stem foreclosures. With another family facing foreclosure every 13 seconds, the need to put the economy before politics couldn't be clearer. New numbers released today by the Mortgage Bankers Association underscore how quickly the housing situation continues to deteriorate: In 2008 more than a