Tell Your Representative to Stop the App Debt Trap
Urge your Representative to reject any EWA bill that fails to protect workers and families from harmful fees, debt traps, and predatory practices.
Call your Representative to Reject Any EWA Bill that Fails to Protect Workers and Families from Predatory Practices
Call your House Financial Services Committee members to reject any EWA bill that fails to protect workers and families from harmful fees, debt traps, and predatory practices.
Congress Has the Authority & Obligation to Respond as Many Student Loan Borrowers Struggle
As living costs continue to rise and the federal student loan system is being fundamentally restructured, millions of borrowers are caught between increasing household expenses and a repayment system that is becoming harder to navigate. Understanding the financial condition of the borrower population before these changes take full effect matters because policy changes interact with the financial circumstances of the...
Payday Loan App Litigation Tracker
This litigation tracker compiles key cases addressing payday loan app products. It highlights how courts and enforcement authorities are analyzing core issues such as whether advances constitute “credit,” how fees and tips are treated under applicable law, and whether these products trigger protections like the Military Lending Act’s 36% rate cap and other disclosure and anti-evasion requirements. So far, every...
A Policy-Related Reporting Change, not Increasing Financial Distress, Drove the Late 2025 / Early 2026 Increase in the FHA Serious Delinquency Rate
The 90D+ delinquency (DQ) rate on loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which captures loans that are 90 or more days delinquent but not in foreclosure or bankruptcy, has increased sharply. At 3.57% in September 2025, it has since risen to 5.23% in January 2026, an increase of 1.66 percentage points (pp) in just 4 months. Market commentators...
We Concur: Courts Unanimously Say Payday Loan Apps Subject to the Military Lending Act
The Military Lending Act (MLA) provides protections for active-duty service members and their families, including a 36% interest rate cap. This one-pager examines how payday loan apps, often marketed as Earned Wage Advance, attempt to evade these protections by claiming they are not loans. It also highlights a growing body of court decisions rejecting those claims and recognizing these products...
Recommendations for Implementing a Cost-Effective VA Loss Mitigation Program
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) holds 25% of the risk of loss associated with borrower default on VA-guaranteed mortgages. Therefore, VA has an economic interest in directing mortgage servicers to engage in risk management techniques that will reduce the number of defaults on VA-guaranteed loans that transition to disposition (i.e., foreclosure, short sale, or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure) and cause...
Tell your Representative to Reject Any EWA Bill that Fails to Protect Workers and Families from Predatory Practices
Email House Financial Services Committee members to reject any EWA bill that fails to protect workers and families from harmful fees, debt traps, and predatory practices.
Statewide Poverty Action Network and CRL Testify at Washington Legislature Work Session on Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)
Nadine Chabrier, CRL Senior Policy Counsel, teamed up with Molly Gallagher, Statewide Poverty Action Network Policy Lead, to talk to Washington state representatives about the importance of examining BNPL policy during the affordability crisis. Watch the full video to see Molly Gallagher's presentation and more.
State-by-State Action on Payday Loan Apps
Payday loan app companies try to evade state credit laws by promoting a legal fiction: they claim that these loans are not loans. As state regulators and attorneys general investigate and challenge industry violations of credit law, these lenders have lobbied state legislatures for exemptions from those laws. This state law chart serves as a shorthand guide to state regulation...