Payday and Other Small Dollar Loans

On December 22, 2020, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) in partnership with several organizations submitted two letters to the OCC in regard to Oportun's application for a bank charter. CRL takes concern with Oportun's poor underwriting standards that harm the consumers they purport to serve; their intimidating debt collection practices; their new partnership with DolEx Check Cashing stores; and...

On December 22, 2020, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) in partnership with several organizations submitted two letters to the OCC in regard to Oportun's application for a bank charter. CRL takes concern with Oportun's poor underwriting standards that harm the consumers they purport to serve; their intimidating debt collection practices; their new partnership with DolEx Check Cashing stores; and...

Civil rights and consumer groups -- Center for Responsible Lending, National Consumer Law Center, East Bay Community Law Center, National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, and National Coalition for Asian Pacific Americans Community Development – filed an amicus brief in support of the attorneys general of California, Illinois, and New York in their case against a rule from the...

The Center for Responsible Lending and the undersigned consumer, civil rights, community and faithbased organizations oppose the Bureau’s plans to engage in payday loan disclosure testing. We do so in the broader context of the Bureau’s having repealed much-needed substantive ability-to-repay protections without basis and in light of the overwhelming evidence that disclosures will not protect consumers from the harms...

A legacy of racial discrimination in housing, lending, banking, policing, employment, and otherwise, has produced dramatically inequitable outcomes that persist today. Communities of color, often largely segregated due to the history of redlining and other racially exclusionary housing policy, experience higher rates of poverty, lower wages, and higher cost burdens to pay for basic living expenses. Payday loans cause particular...

The undersigned consumer, civil rights, and housing organizations welcome the CDFI Fund (Fund)’s efforts to more vigorously ensure that the primary mission of any CDFI is to promote community development. CDFIs are uniquely suited to promote community development and expand financial inclusion. At times, however, we see CDFIs use “financial inclusion” as the central purported justification for permitting irresponsible lending...

The Center for Responsible Lending, Self-Help Credit Union, Self-Help Federal Credit Union, and Self-Help Ventures Fund welcome the CDFI Fund’s efforts to more vigorously ensure that the primary mission of any CDFI is to promote community development. To that end, we urge the Fund to establish lending standards that function as clear, bright-line eligibility requirements for CDFI certification or renewal...

In 2008, Ohio voters affirmed capping the cost of payday loans in the state at 28% interest; however, payday and car-title lenders engaged in schemes to evade the voter-mandated cap, trapping consumers in a cycle of debt with APRs of over 500%. In 2018, Ohio lawmakers approved some restrictions on these lending schemes, but even with these 2018 changes, payday...

In the fall of 2017, after more than five years of outreach and research, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a regulation to address harms to consumers caused by payday loans, vehicle-title loans, and certain other loans with similar features. In July 2020, the CFPB issued a new rule that repeals core aspects of the 2017 rule. Payday and...

Ten years after passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, with the country again facing an economic crisis, new polling data from Lake Research Partners, commissioned by the Center for Responsible Lending and Americans for Financial Reform shows that voters across all political parties are broadly and intensely supportive of strong consumer financial protections and of...