Broad Coalition Comment to Department of Financial Protection and Innovation on Consumer Protection Issues

Our broad coalition of consumer and business organizations thanks you for the opportunity to comment regarding how the DFPI can best implement AB 1864 (Limón), the California Consumer Financial Protection Law (CCFPL). The CCFPL is an important and significant step forward for California and offers the promise of a bold consumer-facing department that can be at the forefront of consumer...

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...

OCC Proposed Rule Would Invite an Onslaught of Predatory Installment Lending into California

In a September 3 letter to Acting Comptroller of the Currency, Brian Brooks, the Californians for Economic Justice Coalition wrote: California has strong interest rate caps on installment loans intended to protect our residents from predatory loans. Understanding that products like payday loans, car-title loans, and high-cost installment loans at sky high interest rates are merely debt traps for borrowers...

High-Cost Lenders Scheme with Banks to Evade Consumer Protections

A few high-cost lenders are evading state consumer protections through rent-a-bank schemes. Through these sham arrangements, these companies are exploding right through the interest rate limits that most states have put in place for good reason, to protect people from high-cost debt traps that drain them of their hard-earned income. In the following states, payday lenders are using banks, which...

Threat that National Banks Could Help Predatory Lenders Charging 135% to 199% Apr to Evade New California Law

A coalition of 61 consumer, civil rights, and community groups sent letters to three federal bank regulators urging them not to allow their banks to help payday lenders evade state interest rate limits. The groups sent separate letters to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), which regulates the only banks currently involved in rent-a-bank schemes; the Office of the Comptroller...

News Telemundo Fresno

Source
KNSO (TEL) - Fresno, CA
Araceli Panameño, Center for Responsible Lending "vaya a la página de internet de la comisión federal de comercio, busque ahí la información acerca de este acuerdo, regístrese para recibir correos electrónicos". El acuerdo final está sujeto al visto bueno de una corte federal en los próximos meses.

The Ongoing Fight Over Payday Loans

Source
Jefferson Public Radio
The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau changed its tune on payday loans when the country changed presidents. The Center for Responsible Lendingnoticed. CRL's Ezekiel Gorrocino visits with details of the current situation with payday loans.

A lucrative poverty tax

Source
Dylan Svoboda | Sacramento News & Review
Hannah Hudson was one of the few high school graduates lucky enough to take a European summer vacation before the long slog of adulthood. Little did she know, she’d spend a half-day wondering how to cover her next meal after a series of overdraft fees from Bank of America left her more than $100 in debt. Halfway around the globe...

The interest rate on these loans can top 100% in California. Does a 36% cap solve the problem?

Source
HANNAH WILEY | Sacramento Bee
For California borrowers trapped in loans with triple-digit interest rates, a proposed bill to impose a 36% cap might seem like a godsend. If passed, Assembly Bill 539 would end a decades-long practice of allowing installment loans of $2,500 to $10,000 to carry such high interest rates by limiting that number to 36%. But in striking a deal on the...

Kamala Harris's Trump-Sized Tax Plan

Source
Annie Lowrey | The Atlantic
Senator Kamala Harris, a California Democrat and potential 2020 presidential contender, has a Trump-size tax plan of her own. There are two other related issues the proposals would target. The first, as Harris said, is the persistence of payday lending in depressed neighborhoods and among lower-income families. Even given the good economy, and even given the passage of the Dodd-Frank...