Policy & Legislation

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...

Payday loan apps draw borrowers into a pattern of repeated borrowing and a succession of fees that pull from already-stretched paychecks, creating demand for the next loan.

In 2025, the Department of Education and Congress reshaped the student loan system through new laws, administrative actions, and proposed rules that could bring further changes. Together, these actions mean higher costs, fewer protections, and more uncertainty for millions of borrowers. Here is what is happening and how it could affect borrowers. Download the full factsheet. CRL Advocacy Priorities Protect...

Watch the full testimony from Jaylon Herbin, Director of Federal Campaigns as he argues for strengthening the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.

Consumer installment loans offered by nonbank lenders can be an expensive form of credit that keeps borrowers in costly long-term debt. Lenders offer these loans to individuals for their personal or household use. Consumers borrow between $1,000 to $25,000 or more. Many states regulate the costs and other terms of these loans, usually requiring them to be repaid monthly over...

Payday loan apps offer small, short-term loans that are typically repaid on the consumers’ next payday. These products are sometimes called Earned Wage Advance, Early Wage Access, or EWA but few merit this name. Research by CRL and others has demonstrated using these apps leave many consumers worse off - paying high fees for small loans, increasing their risk of...

In the 1990s payday lenders partnered with banks to create a practice known as Rent-a-Bank. This practice exploits a provision of federal law that allows banks to export their interest rates across the country, ignoring state laws meant to protect borrowers from abusive high-rate lending that can lead to a debt trap. While predatory lenders originally used store-front payday locations...

In September, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a lawsuit that could abruptly and permanently close the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – which would not only harm consumers and businesses but would also cause economic chaos.

States are grappling with how to regulate earned wage advances (EWAs) and other fintech cash advances that purport not to be credit. These loans often closely resemble payday loans, with fees that multiply into rates above 300% and cycles of reborrowing that result in workers paying to be paid. State legislatures and regulators should not adopt industry-backed approaches, like those...

The income-driven repayment plan prevents unpaid interest from increasing a borrower’s loan balance, and ensures remaining balances are forgiven after a certain number of years.