The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in recent actions against entities it calls “repeat offenders” has zeroed in on flagrant violations of the Military Lending Act (MLA), which is meant to safeguard active-duty military members and their families from financial abuses. The MLA has features perfect for military families in search of a loan: it caps […]
Category Archives: Predatory Lending
Abigail Faust of The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute has written Regulating Excessive Credit, forthcoming in the Wisconsin Law Review. Here is the abstract: Consumer financial protection law is dominated by ex-ante, contract-centered regulatory measures. But these measures largely fail to curb lenders’ incentive to lend beyond consumers’ ability to repay. The Article thus suggests an alternative […]
The Fourth Circuit this week ruled in favor of Virginia residents in a RICO action challenging illegally high interest rates. The court explained: “The Lac Vieux Desert Band of Chippewa Indians purportedly created businesses under tribal law to make small-dollar, high-interest-rate loans to consumers via the internet. The Borrowers allege that the Tribe did so […]
New Mexico recently enacted a 36% rate cap on consumer loans. Among the remarks that motivated them to do so was the following: Thank you Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Will Hancock and I’m a student at the University of New Mexico School of Law. I had the displeasure of working […]
The Conversation has an interesting piece titled Store credit cards generate corporate profits and disgruntled workers, by a pair of sociology professors, Joya Misra and Kyla Walters. Excerpt: Major apparel companies also sell credit, often with very high fees, like The Gap’s 21.7% starting interest rate, and US$27 to $37 late payment charge. In 2019, […]
The effort was led by Berkeley's Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice and resulted in production of a series of short memoranda available here. Topics covered include discrimination, arbitration, income share agreements, BNPL, substitution effects of regulation, disclosures, overdraft protections, and more.
Vijay Raghavan of Brooklyn has written Consumer Law's Equity Gap, Utah Law Review (forthcoming 2022). Here is the abstract: This article is about the views that shape and constrain the development of consumer law. Consider the market for short-term, high-cost loans. Policymakers tend to justify intervening in these markets on inefficiency grounds (consumers exhibit present bias) […]
Here. The House is expected to follow suit, and the White House has indicated that the president would sign the repeal resolution.
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, Acting CFPB Director Dave Uejio posted an item to the CFPPB Blog that suggests that the Bureau may rekindle its former payday lending rule in some form. Here's the post in full: The CFPB is acutely aware of consumer harms in the small dollar lending market, and is particularly concerned with […]
Christopher K. Odinet of Iowa has written Predatory Fintech and the Politics of Banking, Iowa Law Review (2021 Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: With American families living on the financial edge and seeking out high cost loans even before COVID-19, the term financial technology or “fintech” has been used like an incantation aimed at remedying everything that’s […]