Press Releases

According to a new poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and released today by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), North Carolina voters overwhelmingly disapprove of predatory lending and a bill that would legalize some of the worst lending abuses. The poll shows that 93% of registered North Carolina voters oppose pending legislation, that would allow finance companies to charge...

A new report released today by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) finds a high percentage of payday loan borrowers experience a "visible" or "invisible" payday loan default while caught in the debt trap. The report finds that nearly half of all payday borrowers default within the first two years of their first loan; of the borrowers who default, nearly...

A new report by the Center for Responsible Lending finds that college-bank partnership checking accounts for students offer few benefits to the students who use them. Indeed, some students end up paying more in overdraft fees on these accounts per year than the average student pays for books per year. The student checking accounts studied in this report are those...

CRL president Mike Calhoun delivered the following testimony at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau field hearing on payday loans in Richmond, VA on March 26, 2015. Opening Remarks Thank you for the opportunity to participate on today's panel. This is a critical hearing for the millions of working families who are snared in the debt trap of unaffordable loans. The...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is offering a first look at where the agency's efforts to rein in the abusive practices of payday and car title lenders are headed. At a hearing in Richmond, VA, the consumer agency will release information outlining a proposed rule and take testimony from a panel of consumer and civil rights advocates as well as...

In a speech delivered at Georgia Tech yesterday, President Obama discussed his plans to implement more robust consumer protection for student loan borrowers. Shortly before his address, the president signed a Memorandum directing the Department of Education and other federal agencies to help students better manage their loans. Leslie Parrish, deputy director of research at the Center for Responsible Lending...

On Friday, the US Department of Education announced it will end contracts with five student loan debt collectors that collect federal student loan debts on behalf of the government. The Department found that the five companies had a pattern of providing incorrect information to borrowers about their rights to manage their loans and bring them out of default. The Department...

This week President Obama directed the Department of Labor to protect families from "conflicted" retirement counsel provided by financial advisors. The Department will kick off a rulemaking process requiring all retirement advisors to abide by a "fiduciary," or trust standard. Gary Kalman, Executive President for Federal Policy commented on the proposed action: When you walk into a bank to set...

Equifax, the consumer credit reporting agency, recently released a report that it said refutes evidence pointing to a growing "bubble" in the subprime auto lending market based on the fact that credit scores were higher for people with subprime auto loans than for people who do not have an auto loan, ignoring the significant concerns raised by recent Center for...

Voters from across the political spectrum are deeply concerned about payday lending including loans with interest rates that average 300 percent. Republicans, Democrats and Independents also feel strongly that payday and car title lenders should be required to follow the same kinds of responsible lending practices as banks and other for-profit lenders, according to a new, bipartisan national poll sponsored...