North Carolina Legislative Wrap-Up September 12, 2017

Our top priorities for the 2017 NC General Assembly session were to keep payday and car title lenders out of North Carolina, to defend our strong debt buyer and debt collection protections and our strong mortgage lending protections, and to look for opportunities to strengthen other lending protections while guarding against any proposals to weaken them. This 2017 session of...

Stop Rollback of the Arbitration Rule – Give Consumers Their Day in Court

Dear Coalition Supporters, Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its final rule to rein in arbitration abuses and improve access to the judicial system for all consumers. This week, US House and Senate members have introduced Congressional Review Act (CRA) Resolutions to overturn this CFPB rule. We expect the US House to vote on its CRA resolution...

North Carolina Legislative Update July 12, 2017

Dear Coalition Supporters, This update discusses serious threats from the federal level to our NC protections against predatory lending as well as several positive actions in NC and nationally. It includes recent developments about payday lending, student lending, housing finance reform and the new arbitration ban. And it discusses the threat of Congress dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)...

North Carolina Legislative Update September 2015

The 2015 NC General Assembly adjourned yesterday, months after we first expected them to wrap-up their session. They will reconvene for the short session on April 25, 2016. Because of your calls and letters, three very dangerous bills did not pass: Senate Bill 681, which would have legalized 80 to 125% loans, never even got a committee hearing, House Bill...

States without Payday and Car‐title Lending Save $5 Billion in Fees Annually

Payday and car title loans are small-dollar, high-cost products that thrive on keeping consumers in a cycle of debt. With lenders doing essentially no underwriting, consumers find it easy to obtain these loans, often marketed as a solution to financial emergency. However, the unaffordability of the loan and the lenders extreme leverage over the borrowers – either through direct access...

NC Student Loan Calculus: What North Carolina Can Do to Ensure All of Its Students Receive an Affordable, Quality College Education

The topic of student loan debt is increasingly gaining public attention. Too often, assumptions about debt are made that hide the real contours of the problem. For example, simply citing aggregated student loan debt loads at a state or national level suggests that every student loan borrower is the same– with identical financial backgrounds, borrowing to attend similar institutions, and...

North Carolina Organizations for a Strong Payday Rule

View a letter from North Carolina organizations to Director Richard Cordray of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau calling for a strong payday rule. North Carolina has a unique story to tell about payday lending. North Carolina was the first state to: Roll back a once legal payday industry Litigate the rent-a-bank model Force a bank to drop its bank payday...

Past Due: Debt-collection Reforms That Protect Consumers Not Found to Restrict Credit Availability

Debt buyers, specialized debt-collection companies, purchase defaulted consumer debt from creditors such as credit card companies for pennies on the dollar. Debt buyers then attempt to collect the debt, often by suing borrowers in court. Unfortunately, because debts are typically sold to debt buyers without fully verifying the accuracy of the borrower's identity, amount of the debt, or status of...

North Carolina Legislative Update October 1, 2015

The 2015 NC General Assembly adjourned yesterday, months after we first expected them to wrap-up their session. They will reconvene for the short session on April 25, 2016. Because of your calls and letters, three very dangerous bills did not pass: Senate Bill 681, which would have legalized 80 to 125% loans, never even got a committee hearing, House Bill...

SB 1400 Foreclosure Process for Active Duty Military

SB 1400 requires that foreclosures must proceed through the judicial foreclosure process (rather than power of sale) when the homeowner is on active military duty and the mortgage was entered into prior to active duty service. The bill is meant to complement the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). SCRA already required that a hearing be held before a judge to...