Americans for Financial Reform supports the introduction of the Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act of 2021. This legislation would extend the 36 percent APR cap on payday and car-title loans in the Military Lending Act (MLA) to cover all borrowers.
Americans for Financial Reform today applauded the introduction of the Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act of 2021, legislation that would extend the 36 percent APR interest rate cap on payday and car-title lenders in the Military Lending Act (MLA) to cover all Americans.
Small business advocacy organizations, representing tens of thousands of affiliated small businesses and the interests of the 30 million small businesses in the country, submitted a letter to Congress expressing strong support for Senate Joint Resolution 15, the Congressional Review Act Resolution to repeal the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s True Lender Rule.
Private equity firms often profit from mass incarceration and they expand inherently racists business practices in communities of color. Private equity is behind manufacturers of weapons used against people protesting police brutality against the Black community.
Consumer advocates slammed the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for its final rule issued today that encourages online non-bank lenders to launder their loans through banks so they can offer high-cost triple-digit loans in states where such loans are illegal. The rules were strongly opposed by a bipartisan group of attorneys general as well as by numerous community, consumer, civil rights, faith and small business organizations, and may face legal challenges.
Private equity has pushed into the high-priced consumer loan industry, offering payday and other consumer loans that profit off trapping borrowers in a cycle of debt. Private equity firms own over 5,000 storefront payday and online lenders that often make loans at 300% annual percentage
The Proposal—a plainly outcome-driven, 47-page exercise in grasping for straws—has offered no reasonable basis to rescind that Rule. Based on a distorted focus on the Rule’s “dramatic impacts” on lenders’ ability to engage in a predatory practice, rather than on the need to protect consumers, the Proposal claims that the evidence must somehow be “more robust.” If the Rule requires significant changes for payday and vehicle title lenders, it is because the harm to consumers is dramatic. The Bureau’s new approach would ignore its consumer protection mandate and require the agency to hesitate when consumer harm is the most severe.
“Congress has done the right thing in allowing the rule to stand. Now the spotlight is on Mick Mulvaney. Will he move ahead on his plans to unravel it, and continue to cater to the payday lenders who gave generously to his campaigns?” said Lisa Donner, executive director at AFR.
Trump’s unlawfully appointed Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Mick Mulvaney is giving predatory payday lenders a free pass. Specifically, National Credit Adjusters, a debt collector for payday loan companies with 685 complaints against it, confirmed that a pending case against the company is “dead.”
Private equity moguls have invested heavily in the payday and installment lending. The development puts private equity firms in the position to profit from efforts by payday lenders to roll back an important new rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.