Research

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...

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...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is widely expected to soon propose a new national rule that addresses payday and car title lending. If strong enough, the rule has the potential to rein in the worst abuses of these kinds of high-cost loans, which carry triple-digit interest rates. Payday lenders are pushing for loopholes in the rule that would make...

Payday and car-title loans typically carry annual percentage rates (APR) of at least 300%. These high-cost loans are marketed as quick solutions to a financial emergency. Research demonstrates, however, that they frequently lead to debt that is nearly impossible to escape. In addition, these loans are related to a cascade of other financial consequences, such as increased overdraft fees, delinquency...

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...

This memo summarizes the findings from a statewide poll of 501 likely 2016 general election voters in Colorado. Only those registered voters who had participated in a past general election were invited to participate, as well as any new registrants since the November 2012 election. View the polling questions and topline results. (PDF)

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...

New CRL research confirms that over the past decade, a Florida law that was enacted to protect Florida consumers from the predatory harms of payday lending has done the exact opposite. Instead, since 2005 payday loan borrowers in the Sunshine State have spent over $2.5 billion in payday loan fees. Further, Florida's senior citizens and consumers of color are the...

In a new report, the Center for Responsible Lending – along with Americans for Financial Reform – examines the impact of advocacy efforts of policy and regulation. The report take stock of both gains (actions that support or defend consumer protections) and losses (actions that jeopardize or reduce consumer protections) – specifically in the following areas: Federal legislation State legislation...

Public Opinion Strategies conducted a survey of 500 likely voters in Michigan. The survey was conducted December 17-20, 2015 and has a margin of error of +4.3.8% in 95 out of 100 cases. Three hundred (300) interviews were conducted with landline respondents and 200 interviews were conducted with cell phone respondents. Key findings included: There is clear opposition to payday...