payday lenders

In response to a recent TWI report, the nation’s leading financial literacy group has launched an investigation into its conflict-of-interest policies.

Following up on our piece this month about how payday lenders have found a friend in Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) — who’s pushing legislation that caps interest rates on those loans at nearly 400 percent — it comes as little surprise that the pawnshop industry, among the largest sub-sets of short-term lenders, has been kind [...]

Mike’s excellent story today about the weak reforms of the payday lending industry proposed by onetime industry foe Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) details a disappointing setback for efforts to curb the insidious practice of charging down-on-their-luck consumers loan shark rates for short-term loans.

Chairman of a House Financial Services subcommittee is pushing a loophole-riddled bill that would allow payday lenders, who are his top campaign contributors, to charge annual interest rates of nearly 400 percent.

The payday lenders claim they’ll go out of business if they can no longer charge 400 percent interest on short-term loans.