Peter Smith ‌

Peter Smith 800x533 Jun2022

Senior Researcher

Overdraft Fees

Peter Smith is a senior researcher leading on overdraft practices, as well as works on mortgages, student loans and bank payday loan issues. Pete has been with CRL since 2005, authoring numerous reports and briefs, and creating body of often-cited research literature.

He was born and raised in Maryland, and attended the University of Maryland's Honors Program, where he graduated with a BS in Mathematics. Based CRL's Oakland (CA) office, Pete is entering the Masters of City Planning program at the University of California at Berkeley. In his spare time, he is an avid record collector and Scrabble player.

Research & Policy

Issue Brief: Consumer Understanding of Buy Now, Pay Later in California

Issue Brief: Consumer Understanding of Buy Now, Pay Later in California

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) or pay-in-four products allow consumers to purchase goods in four equal, often interest-free installments over a set time period (often 6 weeks). BNPL is often available directly at checkout on an e-commerce website (like Amazon or Apple) or through a third-party smartphone or web application. Examples of third-party BNPL providers include Affirm, AfterPay, Klarna, Splitit...
More
Research
Payday and Other Small Dollar Loans

Waiving Criminal Court Fees Prevents Harms of Civil Debt

Waiving Criminal Court Fees Prevents Harms of Civil Debt

Many people involved in the criminal legal system live on the economic margins. Most defendants are unable to hire their own lawyer due to indigency. In North Carolina, the average person in prison doesn’t have a high school diploma. The cost of involvement in the criminal legal system can quickly add up to thousands of dollars, but the people expected...
More
Research
Consumer Finance

Unsafe Harbor: The Persistent Harms of High-Cost Installment Loans

Unsafe Harbor: The Persistent Harms of High-Cost Installment Loans

Over the past decade, the high-cost small-dollar loan market, once dominated by short-term balloon payment payday loans, has seen the rise of high-cost installment loans with longer terms. Payday loans are typically repaid in a lump-sum, usually due in 14-day periods. Installment loans tend to be larger in size and repaid in several installments, typically over a period of several...
More
Research
Payday and Other Small Dollar Loans

Debt Under Duress: The Economic Impacts of Bail Bonds on San Francisco Bay Area Residents

Debt Under Duress: The Economic Impacts of Bail Bonds on San Francisco Bay Area Residents

Nearly 500,000 people are currently detained pretrial in jails around the United States, in part due to high bail amounts set by the judicial system that individuals cannot afford. That is a six-fold increase in the U. S. pretrial population from the 1970s, when it was closer to 83,000 people detained. Bail is money required in exchange for release from...
More
Research
Debt Collection & Settlement

Necessary Relief: Substantial Cancellation Will Ease the Burden of Unaffordable Student Debt (and Boost the Economy)

Necessary Relief: Substantial Cancellation Will Ease the Burden of Unaffordable Student Debt (and Boost the Economy)

The student debt crisis has been building for decades, and millions of families have seen their dreams derailed by unaffordable debt repayment burdens that block their path to financial stability. As college costs rose, students had to take on increasing amounts of debt to pay for higher education. At the same time, state student financial aid offerings were drastically reduced...
More
Research
Student Loans

Court System Overload: The State of Debt Collection in California after the Fair Debt Buyer Protection Act

Court System Overload: The State of Debt Collection in California after the Fair Debt Buyer Protection Act

Over the past 50 years, wage stagnation, as well as already high and rising housing, health care, and education costs have dramatically increased debt loads for the average family. Moreover, recovery from the Great Recession has been uneven. Data show that families of color, Americans born after 1970, and households earning less than $60,000 annually are the least likely to...
More
Research
Debt Collection & Settlement

Overdraft Fees: Banks Must Stop Gouging Consumers During the COVID-19 Crisis

Overdraft Fees: Banks Must Stop Gouging Consumers During the COVID-19 Crisis

A review of 2019 data shows that big banks continue to collect over $11 billion in overdraft related fees each year. Banks engage in a number of abusive practices that combine to drain massive sums from their customers’ checking accounts. The large majority of these fees are shouldered by banks’ most vulnerable customers, often driving them out of the banking...
More
Research
Overdraft Fees

Unfair Market: The State of High-Cost Overdraft Practices in 2017

Unfair Market: The State of High-Cost Overdraft Practices in 2017

According to new data released recently by the FDIC, the largest banks in America collected $11.45 billion in overdraft and non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees from American consumers in 2017, an increase of approximately $10 million over the 2016 total. Overdraft fees often impose a great burden on those already living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to make ends meet. Typically, a...
More
Research
Overdraft Fees

Repairing A Two-Tiered System: The Crucial but Complex Role of FHA

Repairing A Two-Tiered System: The Crucial but Complex Role of FHA

Since 1934, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has played a vital role in the housing finance system. It serves as the entry point to the mortgage market for many first-time homebuyers and helped create a strong economic recovery following the Great Depression. However, in its early development, the FHA perpetuated racial discrimination in its facilitation of broad mortgage credit liquidity...
More
Research
Mortgage Lending

Supporting mortgage lending in rural communities

Supporting mortgage lending in rural communities

Nearly 74 million people, about a quarter of the United States population, live in rural areas. That includes 15 million people of color. But according to the authors of a new paper published by the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings, these families are often overlooked in policy discussions on proposed changes to the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), which...
More
Research
Mortgage Lending

How Overdraft Fees Harm Consumers and Discourage Responsible Bank Products

How Overdraft Fees Harm Consumers and Discourage Responsible Bank Products

An analysis of recently available data confirms that financial institutions continue to engage in abusive overdraft practices and that reform is urgently needed. This issue brief highlights five key concerns: Overdraft fees remain an enormous drain on checking account customers. Using newly available call report data as the starting point, we estimate that consumers pay nearly $14 billion annually in...
More
Research
Overdraft Fees

The State of Lending in America and Its Impact on U.S. Households

The State of Lending in America and Its Impact on U.S. Households

State of Lending provides an across-the-board survey of financial products that Americans use to handle everyday transactions, buy homes and automobiles, and build savings and wealth. The report outlines predatory lending practices in various fields of consumer lending, and explains why protecting fair, affordable access to credit is vital for both consumers and the U.S. economy. The report also describes...
More
Research
Consumer Finance

The State of Lending: Bank Payday Loans

The State of Lending: Bank Payday Loans

Even in the face of strong opposition by banking regulators, a few banks continue to make triple-digit payday loans. In this chapter, our analysis shows no meaningful distinction between storefront payday lending and bank payday lending. Banks give their products names such as "Ready Advance" and "Early Access," but these loans come with the same predatory features and produce the...
More
Research

The State of Lending: High-Cost Overdraft Fees

The State of Lending: High-Cost Overdraft Fees

In spite of regulatory changes in recent years, many banks and credit unions continue to charge abusive fees on debit cards and checking accounts. In "High-Cost Overdraft Practices," CRL discusses these findings: In 2011, overdraft fees cost consumers $16.7 billion. Debit card transactions trigger the most expensive fees. On debit card purchases, the median overdraft charge is $35 for a...
More
Research
Overdraft Fees