On July 28, the Center for Responsible Lender (CRL) issued a new report regarding the “persistent harms of high-cost installment loans,” claiming that such loans come with an “exploitative cost” in fees and interest that far exceed that amount borrowed, often causing irreparable harm to borrowers.  CRL notes that the high-cost small-dollar loan market has recently seen the rise of high-cost installment loans with atypically longer terms, usually over a period of several months, in contrast to traditional payday loans, which are typically due in a lump sum within fourteen days. … Continue Reading

On March 13, 2014, HUD published a proposal to eliminate the requirement that an FHA loan borrower be required to pay interest after the loan is prepaid.  The move is needed because the requirement would effectively cause FHA loans to be prohibited under CFPB rules starting in January 2015.  Comments on the proposal are due by May 12, 2014.… Continue Reading

Coincidentally (or not), on the same day the CFPB launched its overdraft fee initiative, previously discussed, 250 national, state and community organizations and individual activists wrote the heads of the CFPB and the federal banking agencies to attack deposit advance products. Both the CFPB in its payday lending exam manual and the authors of this letter treat deposit advance loans as a kind of payday loan.… Continue Reading