Category Archives: Predatory Lending

Is the payday lending rule coming back in some form?

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 […]

Chris Odinet Article: Predatory Fintech and the Politics of Banking

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 […]

CFP on Racial Capitalism

We've received the following Call for Papers, which overlaps with consumer law issues: Racial Capitalism: An Elaboration in Legal Scholarship As a journal dedicated to social, racial, and economic justice, the Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development (JCRED) is soliciting articles for Racial Capitalism, an Elaboration in Legal Scholarship, our forthcoming symposium issue. This issue will explore the […]

Online Program: The Racial Wealth Gap: Lending, Credit, and Other Disparities

Cheryl Wade, author of Predatory Lending and The Destruction of the African American Dream, Sarah Ludwig, Executive Director, New Economy Project, and Cathi Kim, Director, Inclusiv/Capital will speak on Thursday, August 13 at 7 pm EDT. Attendance is free but registration is required. The registration link is at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxTjViodwGaNG03Q1kEqD85DvhpkNxYbpp968QVzMD9mkrTQ/viewform.

More on the failure of disclosure laws: Chen paper explores how Australian payday lenders obscure mandatory warnings

Vivien Chen of the Monash University – Department of Business Law & Taxation has written Online Payday Lenders: Trusted Friends or Debt Traps? 43 University of New South Wales Law Journal (Advance 2020). Here's the abstract: The recent Senate inquiry into credit and hardship underscored the prevalence of predatory conduct in the payday lending industry. […]

Supreme Court bans debt collection robocalling to cellphones

by Stephen Gardner Today, the Supreme Court held that collecting government debt by robocalling cellphones didn’t deserve special First Amendment treatment. In Barr v. American Assn. of Political Consultants, Inc., the Court held that a 2015 amendment to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which allowed cellphone robocalls to collect federal debts (such as student loans […]

NYT: CFPB economist charges that Trump-appointees manipulated Bureau research

by Jeff Sovern The article is here. From being a data-driven agency, the Bureau has become a politics-driven agency. No doubt the payday industry was not hurt by spending money at a Trump hotel. The Times also reproduces the memo in question. I hope the House Financial Services Committee quickly convenes a hearing, online or […]

Jim Hawkins Paper: Earned Wage Access and the End of Payday Lending

Jim Hawkins of Houston has written Earned Wage Access and the End of Payday Lending. Here is the abstract: Fintech companies have developed a financial product that allows employees to gain access to wages that they have already earned before their scheduled payday. The fee for getting an earned wage advance is usually small, making this […]

Arizona payday lenders oppose minimum wage increases; one acknowledges that increasing the minimum wage may hurt business

David Dayen has the story in The American Prospect. Here's an excerpt, but the entire story is worth a look: It may seem axiomatic, but it’s rarely stated out loud: Businesses that rely on poor people need the economic system to keep churning out poor people to survive. You almost have to applaud the payday […]

ProPublica story on how Utah payday lenders get borrowers jailed for missing payments

Here. Excerpt: Across Utah, high-interest lenders filed 66% of all small claims cases heard between September 2017 and September 2018, according to a new analysis of court records conducted by a team led by Christopher Peterson, a law professor at the University of Utah and the financial services director at the Consumer Federation of America, […]