CRL in the News

“This is a scheme to keep Mick Mulvaney at the helm of the CFPB so he can continue working on behalf of the payday lenders,” said Yana Miles, Center for Responsible Lending senior legislative counsel. “Mulvaney has already publicly stated his intention to unlawfully stay at the consumer bureau until the end of the year or longer.”

“The Senate should immediately hold confirmation hearings and reject this inexperienced candidate and demand that the President nominate someone qualified who has a history of making consumer protection a top priority,” said Yana Miles, senior legislative associate at the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer group.

According to a data sheet prepared by the Center for Responsible Lending the APR charged by these lenders, including Check N Go, can range from a merely crushing 533 percent to a truly awful 792 percent.

“Mick Mulvaney and the payday lenders tried an end-run around the law, and it was rightly rejected. Today’s ruling is a win for consumers,” Will Corbett, litigation counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, said in a statement.

“The consumer bureau, under the direction of Mick Mulvaney, should never have made this transparent attempt to destroy an important consumer protection around payday lending," four consumer groups — Public Citizen, the Center for Responsible Lending, the National Consumer Law Center, and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund — said in a joint statement. "We’re heartened that a federal judge...

These loans are called "payday" because you're supposed to pay them back as soon as you get paid. In fact, if you don't have a job, you can't get one. Borrowers tend to be young and lower middle class. The loans are typically not used for crack or heroin or broken bones or other unforeseen problems, but for baby food...

On the homeownership front, research by the Center for Responsible Lending has found that Black and Latino mortgage borrowers are disproportionately dependent upon FHA financing, and still have scant access to the most affordable and sustainable mortgages – 30-year fixed rate conventional ones. This heavy reliance on FHA financing even includes upper income Blacks and Latinos who could be eligible...

These fees cost consumers an estimated $14 billion a year, according to consumer watchdogs. Often, consumers are charged several fees, which average $35 each, within a short time period, according to research by the Center for Responsible Lending.

Proponents argue that raising the asset threshold at which banks are subject to enhanced regulatory standards, including stress tests that gauge a bank’s ability to withstand economic conditions like those that led to the 2008 financial crisis, would help small and regional banks. But the bill actually helps very large banks with up to $250 billion in assets. This is...

Among consumer advocates, Mulvaney’s actions are as unprecedented as they are bizarre. For more than a decade, research by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has consistently found that these small-dollar loans pick the pockets of working people at a rate of $8 billion in fees ever year.