Stirring in Alabama
September 25, 2009 | Alabama, industry | Comments (0)From the story:
The Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice Inc., Arise Citizens’ Policy Project, the Alabama Poverty Project and AARP Alabama joined forces Thursday to sponsor a summit on the high cost of credit for low-income residents in the state and what can be done to protect consumers.
Shay Farley, legal director for Alabama Appleseed, said part of the goal of the summit was to develop strategies to stop predatory, short-term lending in the state, particularly payday lending. Farley said the groups want to build vocal coalitions that will expose predatory lending practices and raise awareness about how harmful they are to low-income Alabamians. Advocates and legislators who have gone to bat for such issues in the Alabama Legislature told the groups they’ll need those voices if they hope to compete with the lobbyists who represent the short-term loan industry.
Another group with no answer to how consumers can get access to short-term credit.
PDL critic running for Alabama House
February 25, 2009 | Alabama, industry, media coverage, states | Comments (0)From the story:
Like everyone else
December 21, 2008 | Alabama, industry, media coverage, research, states | Comments (0)Payday lending customers in Alabama are belt tightening. From the story:
Several chains of stores operating in the Montgomery area say the annual spike in the final five or six weeks of the year didn’t happen this year, reflecting a the results found in a survey conducted by Borrow Smart Alabama, an industry trade association.
The survey shows that more payday owners are reporting a decline in business this year, with about three times as many reporting a decline in December as reported an increase in lending.
But we’re told over and over again by the media that payday lenders benefit from the economic downturn. It was shrewd of Borrow Smart Alabama to do a survey disproving this.
We’re annoyed with Alabama
December 1, 2008 | Alabama, industry, states | Comments (1)Montgomery is now considering restrictions on payday lending. Could this have anything to do with the 3,000 editorials written against payday lending by the Montgomery Advertiser?
This is why employees and store owners need to keep sending letters to their local newspapers in support of payday lending.
Filling a real need
November 15, 2008 | Alabama, customers, industry, states | Comments (0)A terrific guest opinion piece in the Alabama Advertiser today:
All that said, the short-term lending industry in Alabama recognizes that it is our responsibility not only to be business people of integrity, but also to work daily toward being a part of the solution.To that end, more than 300 stores in the state have joined Borrow Smart Alabama, which is working to educate customers and young people and to help them build a better financial future.
In the midst of this recent economic crisis, Borrow Smart is sending a financial educator into junior colleges to teach seminars on budgeting and saving. The members are also posting fliers in their stores encouraging customers to “borrow smart” during these challenging times — always remembering that our loans are a short-term solution intended to meet urgent and temporary needs.
One-trick pony
October 23, 2008 | Alabama, states | Comments (0)That’s the Montgomery (AL) Advertiser. It’s published its10th, 12th, who knows, op-ed today calling for rate caps on lending. It’s a good thing Alabama has no real problems that need fixing, like its education system, its economy, its roads or environment.
Title loans, payday lenders, what’s the difference?
October 2, 2008 | Alabama, customers, industry, media coverage, personal finance, states | Comments (0)This reporter in Alabama doesn’t think there’s any distinction:
Only, Wall Street firms aren’t being dunned over the phone by bill collectors in Bangalore or pawning their car titles at a payday loan store.
We know the Alabama education system stinks but this is ridiculous.
Prefer payday lenders to banks?
October 1, 2008 | Alabama, customers, industry, media coverage, states | Comments (0)Do any reporters who cover this issue know what they’re talking about? From a story out of Alabama:
Trying to form relationships with potential customers who prefer payday lenders and pawn shops to traditional banks was the topic of a daylong forum that brought about 70 Alabama Black Belt bankers to Mobile on Tuesday.
Payday lending customers, of course, already have bank relationships.
Do these people even read what they write?
August 11, 2008 | Alabama, industry, local issues, regulation, states | Comments (0)Our friends at the Aniston (AL) Star have an editorial today lamenting how hard it is to open a business in Aniston and then…get this…lauding a proposed moratorium on payday lenders:
If there’s anything constructive born from this election-year banter it’s that Anniston — a city seeking positive traction in many areas — must ramp up its efforts to be seen as pro-business, as a city that not only recruits big-box retailers but caters to small, locally owned business that are the backbone of many towns. There already are enough vacant storefronts along Quintard Avenue to do the city immeasurable harm….
Anniston is doing some things right; its moratorium on issuing business licenses to any additional payday lending stores, pending a ruling from the state attorney general, is a brave, proactive step.
It’s not easy to contradict yourself in one simple editorial, but the Aniston Star editors have done it.
Payday lenders fill crucial niche in Alabama
July 25, 2008 | Alabama | Comments (0)Jeff Kursman, an industry spokesman, responds today to recent critiques of payday loans in the Montgomery Advertiser. Jeff reminds us of the devastating effects of removing payday loans as a financial option:
A researcher with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concluded that consumers in the states of Georgia and North Carolina bounced more checks, complained more to the Federal Trade Commission about lenders and debt collectors and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy at higher rates after those states eliminated payday loans.
These findings indicate that households without access to payday loans are forced to use costlier credit and suffer greater financial difficulties.
What critics don’t seem to understand, and what Jeff makes so clear, is that not everyone has a friend willing to lend them money or has a credit union down the street running an experimental small-dollar loan program. When we remove payday loans as an option the results speak for themselves.
