Press Releases

Today, the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit of the House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing entitled, "Legislative Proposals to Improve Transparency and Accountability at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau." The hearing will include discussion on eleven bills. Statement of Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending: "In its first two years, the Consumer Financial...

On the fifth anniversary of the Credit CARD Act of 2009, consumer advocates applaud the Act's success in saving Americans billions of dollars in predatory and excessive fees. By one estimate, the CARD Act has saved consumers $12.6 billion annually in lower fees and interest charges; a recent report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau identifies nearly $4 billion annual...

Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, issued the following statement today: Any mortgage finance reform needs to prioritize access to credit and affordability for all creditworthy borrowers – and that's not what we see in the bill that passed the Senate Banking Committee today. The proposal to overhaul the nation's housing finance system needlessly makes mortgages more...

On May 22, 2014, the Center for Responsible Lending, in partnership with other civil and consumer rights advocates, will host a briefing on the auto lending abuses that affect communities of color, low–wealth and the military. The briefing will take place in the House Transportation Committee room, at 2 pm. Few household transactions are as significant, or as large, as...

Mike Calhoun says: Rep. Maxine Waters has presented a solid proposal on how to carefully reform the nation's housing finance system. The Home Forward Act of 2014 rightly recognizes that any reform to this market must ensure broad credit access for qualified borrowers and a level playing field among lenders of every size. The HOME Forward Act correctly structures the...

A new report from the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) finds that the debt buying and debt collection industries have grown rapidly in recent years – and with them, a suite of predatory and abusive collection practices that could cause consumers financial havoc. Today, one in seven Americans is being pursued by a debt collector. Despite their recent growth, the...

Chris Kukla, vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, said: We are happy to see that BMO Harris Bank will no longer compensate car dealers through hidden interest rate increases. BMO Harris is ahead of its peers in ending "dealer interest rate markups," a common, virtually invisible practice that adds billions of dollars to the cost of car loans...

Washington, DC – New research released today by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on payday lending affirms what CRL has long found about the inherent defects of payday lending and shows that payday loans create a debt trap that makes borrowers worse off. Among the new findings: Nearly three-fifths of monthly borrowers in the CFPB study were recipients of...

Joint statement The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, National Council of La Raza, National Fair Housing Alliance, National Urban League, and Center for Responsible Lending express serious concerns, say much needs to be fixed The new Senate proposal to reform the housing...

The Department of Education's proposed "gainful employment" rule is a step forward but falls short of protecting consumers from unaffordable debt created by predatory educational programs at for-profit colleges, according to the Center for Responsible Lending."The rule, as it stands now, does not adequately protect students," said Maura Dundon, senior policy counsel at CRL. "It allows too many students to...