In a recent opinion piece for the New York Times, Executive Vice President and Director of Federal Policy at the Center for Responsible Lending, Gary Kalman, calls upon the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to crack down on standards for payday loans – standards that currently cause more problems for low-income consumers than they resolve….
The Obama Administration and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) are aiming to curtail predatory lending practices by expanding the protections offered to active service members and their families. These actions are intended to broaden the Military Lending Act (MLA), crushing loopholes in current statutes by allowing it to cover all forms of payday, refund…
The Pew Charitable Trusts revealed on October 2nd that today’s online payday loans are overrun with abusive and deceitful practices. In their latest entry to the Payday Lending in America series, Pew observed that online and Internet loans are more costly when compared to the loans offered by storefronts. Additionally, most online borrowers admit to…
Seven years after Congress banned payday-loan companies from charging exorbitant interest rates to service members, many of the nation’s military bases are surrounded by storefront lenders who charge high annual percentage rates, sometimes exceeding 400 percent. The Military Lending Act sought to protect service members and their families from predatory loans. But in practice, the…
A report by the Center for Public Integrity, says that Internet-based payday lenders operating in California, New Mexico, West Virginia and Colorado are claiming to be “tribal enterprises” of Native Americans, providing them certain benefits of sovereignty, including immunity from lawsuits and state oversight. But one sensational case in Kansas is gaining media attention and…
With 12.5 million Americans unemployed and many facing inevitable debt harassment, consumers are turning to online payday loans, often with obscene interest rates in excess of 500 percent, to make ends meet. To the financially strapped, worrying about today has displaced planning for tomorrow, virtually assuring future financial problems, ruinous effects to their credit report…
