Press Releases

In response to the President's speech tonight, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has experts available to comment on areas mentioned in the State of the Union address including, mortgage access, student lending and the importance of new rules to rein in reckless practices in the financial sector. Strong Financial and Consumer Protections "With the President's promise to veto legislation...

President Obama is slated to discuss housing recovery and related policies on Thursday, January 8, 2015 from Central High School in Phoenix, Arizona. The Center for Responsible Lending has long been a research and policy leader on housing and mortgage policies. CRL has researched issues including access to credit, abusive mortgage lending practices, discrimination in markets, and family wealth-building. As...

On Thursday, January 8, 2015, President Obama will formally announce plans in Phoenix, AZ to reduce the cost of mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration – a government agency that secures mortgages primarily for lower and moderate-income borrowers, especially families of color. The plans will: reduce FHA premiums to help make mortgages more affordable; build on successful policies that...

At a press conference today in front of a payday lending store in downtown San Jose, Representative Zoe Lofgren, Emmett Carson, the CEO of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Kyra Kazantzis of the Coalition Against Payday Predators (CAPP) warned consumers not to be grinched by payday lenders during the holiday season. Each spoke at the event about the harm caused...

The Department of Education and other regulators are currently reviewing a planned sale of 56 Corinthian campuses to ECMC Group, Inc., a federal student loan debt collector. This sale would convert the Corinthian campuses into nonprofits, exempting them from some federal regulations applying to for-profit colleges. Yesterday, the Center for Responsible Lending, along with 49 other consumer, civil rights, labor...

Today, at a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) field hearing in Oklahoma City, Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) Policy Counsel Lisa Stifler detailed growing abuses in medical debt collection that can take advantage of financially-distressed consumers and unfairly strip families of wealth. At the hearing, the CFPB released a report showing 43 million Americans have medical debt and announced that...

Gary Kalman, executive vice president at the Center for Responsible Lending, offers the following remarks: All Americans agree that taking advantage of the men and women who serve our nation violates our nation's fundamental values. Today, 40 US Senators have given voice to this value by supporting the Department of Defense's decision to strengthen the Military Lending Act. In a...

Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection hosted a field hearing in Wilmington, DE to discuss proposed regulations for prepaid cards – including how overdraft fees and other credit features should be handled on these prepaid products. Maura Dundon of the Center for Responsible Lending offered the following remarks: The CFPB's proposed rule on prepaid cards, announced at a Wilmington field...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Citing biblical prohibitions against unjust lending, the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Baptist Convention USA, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and clergy from over 20 states will join together at Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, D.C. to call for strong federal regulation against predatory payday lending. The assembly will...

On Veterans Day, Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth will send a letter to Department of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, urging him to extend consumer protections for active duty service men and women. Ken Edwards, vice president of federal affairs at the Center for Responsible Lending, comments on Rep. Duckworth's push to protect service members: All Americans agree that taking advantage of service...