Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC - Senators Steve Daines (R-MT) and Mark Warner (D-VA) recently introduced the Access to Fair Financing for Opportunity and Resilient Development (AFFORD) Act to increase and strengthen community development financial institutions (CDFIs). Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), issued the following statement: CDFIs play a vital role in boosting housing supply, particularly affordable housing...

WASHINGTON, DC – With the State of the Union tonight, advocates and former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) staff gathered today across from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The full court heard arguments on National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought, a case that could allow the Trump Administration to cut funding and staff at the CFPB...

Administration’s actions contradict affordability claims expected in president’s speech tonight WASHINGTON, D.C. – With this evening’s State of the Union address expected to feature the president arguing that his administration is tackling our nation’s affordability crisis, Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) President Mike Calhoun issued the following statement: President Trump’s Administration has repeatedly greenlit predatory loans with annual interest rates...

Following the release of a White House report on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) yesterday, Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) Vice President Graciela Aponte-Diaz issued the following statement: There's a glaring omission in this report. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has saved Americans trillions of dollars by protecting them from financial exploitation and providing guardrails that keep predatory lenders...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Amid a national conversation on limiting interest rates, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) applauds U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) for introducing the Predatory Lending Elimination Act (S. 3793), legislation to create a strong, permanent cap of 36% annual percentage rate (APR), including fees, on consumer credit – covering credit cards as well as installment, car-title, and...

Durham, North Carolina – The Center for Responsible (CRL) today released a report on the harm to consumers from a lender charging annual percentage rates (APRs) up to 195%, “Lost Opportunities: How OppFi Traps Borrowers in Unaffordable Debt.” The report outlines a path for state legislators to more effectively stop the scheme by which OppFi and a handful of other...

St. Paul, Minnesota – With President Trump and Congress discussing a national cap on loan interest rates, the Center for Responsible Lending and Minnesota-based Exodus Lending today released a timely report on a recently enacted state rate cap, “ Escape from the Debt Trap: Relief for Minnesotans After State Ends Payday Lending.” Minnesotans had been charged a 220% Annual Percentage...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In what the current administration has already acknowledged is one of the nation’s worst affordability crises for America’s working and middle classes, Russell Vought, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), today issued an advisory opinion that aims to let certain, app-based, financial technology (fin-tech) payday lenders continue concealing the true, high-cost price of their...

WASHINGTON, DC – The Center for Responsible Lending has urged the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Russell Vought, to withdraw a proposed rule that would weaken the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), a 51-year-old civil rights law that prohibits lending discrimination based on personal characteristics, including sex, race, age and national origin. “If it goes into...

Washington, D.C. — The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the League of United Latin American Citizens, Legal Defense Fund and National CAPACD — National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development submitted a comment letter yesterday to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The letter opposes the CFPB’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)...