Monica Burks ‌

Among the hottest consumer finance topics in recent years is the proliferation of online lenders offering fintech cash advances, including the subset of those lenders who offer earned wage advances (EWA). These are very short-term loans of small dollar amounts that users can access through a smartphone app. Lenders that offer these products strenuously attempt to avoid being regulated like other lenders and rely on legal fictions to assert that their loans are not credit. These lenders also typically argue that their products further financial inclusion while, in reality, the worst versions of...

CRL policy counsel Monica Burks recommends Vermont lawmakers decline to codify an Earned Wage Advance business model that could risk enabling payday lending-like debt traps in a state with an 18% usury cap.