Press Releases

Good afternoon. I am Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending. We are a nonprofit, non-partisan research and policy organization that protects family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. I thank our fellow presenters today. They are Jean Ann Fox, director of consumer protection for the Consumer Federation of America, who has done groundbreaking work on...

A Congressional committee did the right thing today by approving a 36-percent cap on payday loans to military personnel that will protect them from these predatory lenders. It was a victory for the Pentagon; the consumer, civil rights and veterans groups who stood up with it; and Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FLA), who introduced the amendment...

The Center for Responsible Lending commends federal regulators who said today they would start requiring lenders to consider whether a borrower can repay when they make certain kinds of home loans. But the regulators missed the boat in helping all the consumers at risk from mortgages that could blow up on them. Lenders have sold billions of dollars of complicated...

Federal financial regulators took a step toward making the mortgage market safer for borrowers today, although there is still much more they can do. Alarmed by a huge increase in new types of mortgages with monthly payments that can make huge leaps, causing "payment shock" to families, regulators will now require lenders to consider whether a borrower can afford these...

At a time when America's service men and women are making sacrifices for all of us, the least the rest of us can do is try to put them out of financial harm's way. That is why I am tremendously pleased that a joint House-Senate conference committee today approved a bill that would cap payday loans to soldiers, sailors and...

Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, urged policymakers to address high-risk "exploding" ARMs in the subprime market before subcommittees of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs today. "Nontraditional loans in the subprime market are seriously eroding the traditional benefits of homeownership," said Mr. Calhoun. "By their very nature, they pose a high risk of...

The Federal Reserve today released figures showing once again that African-Americans and Latinos pay more for mortgages than white borrowers. Data collected from lenders for 2005 show that a majority of loans (52%) to African-Americans and more than one in three loans (40%) to Latinos were higher-cost. White borrowers received a much lower portion of higher cost loans, only one...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 7, 2006) – Congress should act to protect the people protecting us – our soldiers, sailors and aviators – from predators who trap them in loans with annual interest rates as high as 400 percent. Michael D. Calhoun, CRL president, joined Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) and Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) to endorse an amendment to cap payday...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Predatory payday lenders will continue to gouge soldiers, sailors and aviators in California with more than 400 percent interest on loans thanks to the payday-lending industry's intense lobbying of state legislators. High-ranking Navy and Marine officers, consumer groups and their allies in the legislature tried to ban this sort of predatory lending, but it looks like they...

A Defense Department study sent to Congress yesterday shows that Congress must stop predatory lenders from preying on our soldiers, sailors and aviators, said President Michael Calhoun of the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending. The Pentagon report says payday lenders should charge no more than 36 percent annual percentage rates on their loans to service members, the same cap many...