Press Releases

Download the Report High Cost & Hidden from View: The $10 Billion Overdraft Loan Market It is a product many people never asked for, don't want, and can't afford. Yet they wind up with it anyway. It's the overdraft loans that banks and other financial institutions make -- sometimes at interest rates well over 1,000% -- when customers overdraw their...

Congress holds hearings Tuesday, May 24th on two predatory mortgage-lending bills, one backed by industry that would gut strong state laws and weaken federal law, the other supported by consumer and civil rights groups and that would protect more people from losing their homes. Martin Eakes, an expert on predatory lending as CEO of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Responsible...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Reps. Brad Miller, Melvin L. Watt and Barney Frank will hold a press conference Tuesday on their anti-predatory mortgage-lending bill. The Prohibit Predatory Lending Act (HR 1182) strengthens protections against predatory lenders, who are booming as the market for sub-prime mortgages explodes. Predatory lenders cost American homeowners and homebuyers in the sub-prime market, where people with less-than-perfect...

Download the Report Car Title Lending: Driving Borrowers to Financial RuinWashington -– Cash-strapped families risk losing their cars in the latest form of high-cost small lending spreading across America, according to a new report from the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and Consumer Federation of America (CFA). Borrowers who put their cars on the line to borrow a few hundred...

DURHAM, N.C. -- A lawyer at the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) will testify tomorrow before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Small Business on how payday lenders prey on military personnel. The Subcommittee on Rural Enterprise, Agriculture and Technology meets in Kansas City, Missouri amid newspaper reports on service members victimized by payday lenders, who...

WASHINGTON, D.C., -- Civil rights groups joined consumer organizations in opposing a bill in Congress that would gut protections against predatory lenders. That bill, introduced by Reps. Bob Ney of Ohio and Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, would make it easier for unscrupulous lenders to rob the nation's most vulnerable families of their homes and savings. NAACP Chairman Julian Bond urged...

Download the Report Race Matters: The Concentration of Payday Lenders in African-American Neighborhoods in North Carolina DURHAM, NC -- Payday lenders who trap people in triple digit-interest loans locate their stores in African-American neighborhoods in higher concentrations, according to a report by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). African-American neighborhoods in North Carolina have three times as many payday lenders...

Download the Report Race Matters: The Concentration of Payday Lenders in African-American Neighborhoods in North Carolina DURHAM, NC -- Payday lenders who trap people in triple digit-interest loans locate their stores in African-American neighborhoods in higher concentrations, according to a report by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). African-American neighborhoods in North Carolina have three times as many payday lenders...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A new bill in Congress would demolish many of the protections states and the federal government have carefully erected against predatory lenders and would expose millions of homebuyers to the loss of their savings and even their homes. The bill by Congressmen Robert Ney of Ohio and Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania would preempt state laws proven effective...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A bill by Rep. Brad Miller, Rep. Mel Watt and Rep. Barney Frank, the ranking Democrat on the House Finance Committee, would protect homeowners from predatory lenders far better than current federal law, says the Center for Responsible Lending. The bill is modeled on a North Carolina law that has reduced predatory loans and would eliminate current...