CRL in the News

Total fees translate to an annual percentage rate of more than 330% for the average earned wage access user — a rate comparable to payday lenders, according to the California report. It analyzed data from seven anonymous companies across business models and fee structures. “It’s another version of payday loans,” Monica Burks, policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending...

Policymakers and regulators should follow Colorado's lead by protecting consumers from predatory rent-a-bank loans and defending the laws already put in place. Banks and investors would be wise to avoid reputational risks that accompany participation in these schemes.

"There is limited research on how this plan could impact other dimensions of financial security for borrowers. For example, how could this plan affect borrowers' ability to obtain wealth-building assets, like mortgages or business loans?" said report co-author Christelle Bamona, senior research at CRL. "Research has shown previously that student loan debt has prevented several families from acquiring assets like...

As outlined in a recent report by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and California Policy Lab (CPL), the SAVE plan aims to substantially decrease monthly loan payments for borrowers, thereby improving their debt-to-income ratio. This improvement could enhance an individual’s chances of qualifying for a mortgage loan. Notably, the repayment structure under the SAVE plan would be tailored to...

Nadine Chabrier, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, said: 'The monthly subscription fee attached to the Klarna Plus product is clearly a finance charge under the Truth in Lending Act, so we expect Klarna and other lenders offering similar products will provide consumers with the disclosures and consumer protections required by that law.

Overdraft fees accounted for $10 billion in revenue in 2004, but skyrocketed to an estimated $25 billion by 2009, according to research by the Center for Responsible Lending. By 2019, under pressure from the CFPB, overdraft fee revenue had dropped to an estimated $12.6 billion.

“There are families struggling, paycheck to paycheck, [that] are getting hammered, and it is a real tax on access to their deposit funds,” said Michael Calhoun, the president of the Center for Responsible Lending, which has advocated for such rules.

"This issue has had a lot of strong support from civil rights and small-business advocates and there's been a fair amount of advocacy around this," said David Ferreira, senior government relations manager at the Center for Responsible Lending. He cited widespread support for the rule among nearly 100 civil rights and consumer groups, including the Consumer Federation of America, Center...

"People are paying quite a lot to use these apps," said Andrew Kushner, senior policy counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer protection advocacy group that supports California's current move to regulate this growing industry. "It doesn't necessarily look like a lot at first glance." Currently, this industry operates in a grey area legally, with little federal oversight.

In the United States, charging an APR of 455 percent on a consumer credit card is virtually unheard of — and in some cases, would be illegal, said David Silberman, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending. Twenty states plus D.C. set limits on the interest rates that payday lenders may charge; the highest of these is...