Press Releases

Over the past year, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has hosted numerous conversations with faith communities as part of its "Faith and Credit" program. In a letter delivered to Senators today, sixteen Christian leaders with decades of experience providing housing services and financial counseling urged legislators to enact reforms that protect against abusive lending practices targeting low-income households. "From...

Credit card borrowers who pay more than the minimum payment each month can reap big savings under the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, a Center for Responsible Lending analysis finds. (For the full analysis, http://www.responsiblelending.org /research-publication/capitalizing-new-consumer.) Under the new law, known as the Credit CARD Act, borrowers can pay down existing credit card debt sooner by...

The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) is proud of its work to halt predatory lending and help Americans build and protect their financial wealth and security. For seven years we have worked successfully to ensure that mortgage loans are fair and affordable, reduce unfair credit card fees and tricks, rein in 400% interest payday loans, and eliminate abusive debit card...

The Center for Responsible Lending commends the U.S. Treasury Department for making "Hardest Hit Funds" available to housing finance agencies in five additional states: Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, and Rhode Island. This follows a similar action in February to provide funding to California, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada. This second round of state funding comes on the heels...

"We welcome the Administration's stronger actions to stabilize the housing market, particularly doing more to lower loan balances on homes worth less than the mortgage. Foreclosures dragged us into the recession, and until we stop them, the economy will not recover and most homeowners will watch their hard-earned home equity drain away. Since 2007, we have had 6.6 million foreclosures...

"Bank of America's (BofA) new program to reduce loan balances for a defined group of distressed homeowners highlights our nation's very serious foreclosure situation. Today, nearly 1 in 4 homeowners is struggling to stay in a home that's worth less than their mortgage. BofA's initiative responds to a widelyacknowledged reality: reducing a loan's principal balance is a crucial tool for...

"Yesterday's vote by the Senate Banking Committee to move forward with financial reform sends an important message that Congress must change the rules so that consumers are protected from unfair practices, our economy is protected from the damage of bad lending, and taxpayers won't have to pay for another Wall Street bailout. We are encouraged by the bipartisan collaboration between...

CRL commends Chairman Dodd in crafting a financial reform bill that addresses the deceptive lending practices and regulatory failures that have caused millions of families to lose their homes, decreased access to credit for small business owners and cost state and local governments billions in lost revenue. To effectively remedy the lapses that wrecked our economy and resulted in the...

Washington, D.C.—March 5, 2010— The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009, which took effect February 22, 2010, requires new disclosures on monthly credit card statements. The Financial Services Roundtable and the Center for Responsible Lending have teamed up to explain a few of these new disclosures, which are intended to make the cost of credit clearer...

A key federal regulator for years has let national banks engage in lending practices that the regulator itself admits harm consumers and lenders, according to two new reports from the Center for Responsible Lending. (For the full reports go to: http://qa.crl.w.lmdagency.net/research-publication/mainstream-banks-mak… and http://www.responsiblelending.org/research-publication/national-bank-re…) The reports focus on two of many areas in which the regulator—the Office of the Comptroller of...