Recycling in South Carolina
December 23, 2008 | South Carolina, alternatives, customers, employees, industry, media coverage, states | Comments (0)Recycled opinion that is. The Myrtle Beach Sun News supports the same payday lending “reforms” this year that it did last year.
Brilliant
December 23, 2008 | Indiana, alternatives, industry, media coverage, positive media coverage | Comments (0)This column explains in plain English both the needs of the borrower and the lender:
The financing types lumped in the “predatory lending” category include: pawn shops; payday advance and check-cashing operations; rent-to-own stores; buy here, pay here car lots; and tax-refund anticipation loans applied for in combination with tax preparation. Virtually all of these financing services are most heavily utilized by the poor, and all charge much higher rates and fees than it would cost for regular bank financing or paying cash for the product. In some cases, loans are further secured by a hold on a tax refund or property as collateral or the right of repossession.
The obvious problem these so-called advocates miss … What’s the alternative? Loans made when there is a high risk of default and no security? Should poor people not get loans? These are the only practical alternatives.
In a free-market, loans price themselves. Lenders price a loan to make a small profit and borrowers decide whether that is reasonable.
Stop the madness
December 22, 2008 | Uncategorized | Comments (0)Iowa fight?
December 22, 2008 | Iowa, industry, regulation | Comments (0)State Senator Roger Stewart is pushing a 36% rate cap in Iowa. From his letter to the editor:
Unfortunately, what’s promoted as a short-term term loan for emergency situations is actually an extremely high-interest burden for most Iowa payday borrowers. Data from the Iowa Division of Banking indicates that Iowa payday loan borrowers lead the nation by taking out an average of 12 loans per year per payday loan store.
But Senator Stewart, how may times have Iowans taken advances on their credit cards, bounced checks, or missed important payments?
Spam
December 22, 2008 | Uncategorized | Comments (0)A fellow blogger got a funny piece of spam that references payday lending.
Doing without credit cards?
December 22, 2008 | alternatives, industry, personal finance, positive media coverage | Comments (0)Forty percent of Americans say it’s fine with them in this Bankrate survey.
The staying power of pawnbrokers
December 22, 2008 | Ohio, alternatives, industry | Comments (0)A report by Kent State University radio.
The opposite of bias…
December 22, 2008 | Center for Responsible Lending, Montana, industry, industry critics, local issues, media coverage, regulation | Comments (0)Is balance. And it comes from the Billings (MT) Gazette is this article about some recent studies on the payday lending industry.
“Bikies” making payday loans
December 21, 2008 | industry, international, regulation | Comments (0)In Australia, the restrictions on the payday lending industry have driven the business underground. According to this article, outlaw motorcyle gangs have stepped into the void:
Pawnbrokers Industry Federation former president David Poole, who owns Ashgrove Cash Exchange in north-west Brisbane, said the State Government’s 48 per cent interest rate cap on consumer credit loans had put more than 200 loan centres out of business in the past six months.
As a result, the industry had been driven into the hands of bikies.
Prohibition of services that consumers want has never worked and will never work.
Arizona update
December 21, 2008 | Arizona, industry, media coverage, regulation, states | Comments (1)A State Senator has introduced legislation to extend the law under which payday lenders operate, recognizing the need for short-term credit in the current economic crisis. From the story:
Sen.-elect Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said he believes the Legislature will give the industry an extension to stay in business.
“I believe in the free market,” said Pearce, who is well-known for writing the state’s employer-sanctions law as a state representative. “It’s not our business to run a business out of business. . . . These are high-risk loans, and it’s pretty unfair for us to tell you that you can’t take out a high-risk loan.”
Encouraging.
