Credit crunch hits car loan seekers
March 17, 2008 | personal finance | Comments (0)Car loans are now harder to get because of of the credit crunch. According to this story in the Tennessean, lenders are asking for higher downpayments, conducting tougher credit checks, and in general, making it tougher for consumers to get car loans.
The Bank of Mom and Dad
March 17, 2008 | Wall Street Journal, alternatives, industry, media coverage, personal finance | Comments (0)The Wall Street Journal offers advice for young adults needing a short-term loan: get a loan from the bank of Mom and Dad. No Plan B is suggested if Mom and Dad don’t have the cash.
Students hard hit by bounced check fees
March 17, 2008 | alternatives, industry | Comments (0)This story in USA Today details deals that universities make with banks to market debit and credit cards to students. Andrew Cuomo, New York AG, is investigating these arrangements. Most interesting is the chart at the very end of the story. Because students write smaller than average checks (about $12) the per dollar cost of a bounced check fee is enormous, twice that of an adult.
Audit finds CFSA “Best Practices” widely implemented
March 17, 2008 | best practices, industry | Comments (0)Global Compliance, an independent auditing company, found that 99 percent of CFSA-member companies were incompliance with the new Best Practices announced last February. In fact, as this news release indiciates, only five of the surveyed stores were not in compliance and among this stores, the infractions were minor.
Overdrawn!
March 14, 2008 | alternatives, industry | Comments (0)
A new documentary takes at look at overdraft and bounced check charges.
According to Bankrate.com, the average NSF fee is now $28.23 and the average overdraft protection fee is $29.00.
Knowing that those fees hit whether the overdraft is for $3 or $300 and that the fee for a payday loan is typically $15-$17 per $100…it becomes very clear why payday loans are used by customers to avoid bounced check and overdraft fees.
Heartland Institute and payday loans
March 14, 2008 | alternatives, industry, positive media coverage | Comments (0)The Heartland Institute, a national nonprofit research and education organization based in Chicago, offers their perspective on payday loans.
“While payday loans are controversial, they serve an important purpose in the market: to provide short-term emergency loans when other sources of financing are unavailable. These loans clearly are more desirable than bounced checks and late fees, which only further damage a blemished credit history.”
Heartland also provides links to articles and research examining payday lending from a free-market perspective.
Great comment
March 14, 2008 | Colorado, industry, states | Comments (0)One of the comments in response to this Denver Post op-ed raised the old canard about payday lenders “targting” certain neighborhoods. This was the next response:
”Payday loan companies pop up in markets where there is demand for them. Using your logic, I guess I could say that BestBuy pops up in my neighborhood to prey on those that can afford to purchase TV’s.”
Free ATM use!
March 14, 2008 | alternatives, industry, international | Comments (0)At least in India. The Pundit missed this interesting story that came out of India on Wednesday. The Central Bank has banned ATM fees. Surprise, the people don’t like paying them. Now the bankers are complaining that they’re losing money. While the West has had ATMs for 30+ years, they are just starting to spread across much of the developing world. This story out of Nigeria captures some of the pain countries are going through in adapting to this technology.
Must read op-ed in Denver Post
March 14, 2008 | Center for Responsible Lending, Colorado, Denver Post, Georgia, industry, industry critics, media coverage, positive media coverage, regulation, research, states | Comments (0)Terry Kibbe of the Consumers Rights League has a guest piece today in the Denver Post that picks up on recent research by Don Morgan of the NY Federal Reserve.
Money quote: ”Morgan also questioned the validity of the research from the Center for Responsible Lending saying the Center ‘overstated the number of problem borrowers.’ He noted that banning payday loans actually leads to more people bouncing checks, filing for bankruptcy and fighting with collectors. After payday loans in Georgia were banned in 2004, Morgan found, “bounced checks in the Fed processing center in Atlanta jumped by 1.2 million, a 13% increase.”
Even the Pilgrims needed credit
March 13, 2008 | industry, positive media coverage | Comments (0)Apparently, they were big into installment loans. That interesting fact as well as the entire, fascinating History of Credit is found here. The Payday Pundit loved this sentence:
From 1853 we read, “Credit is one of the beneficent fruits of Christian civilization, and, though itself an effect, is in turn a most powerful agent in developing the resources of nations and accelerating their progress.
