Consumer advocates to feds: Don’t legalize payday lending in states like NC

Federal regulators at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are moving ahead with the development of rules to regulate the predatory payday lending industry and this is excellent news for vulnerable consumers in dozens of states. One sizable potential problem with the effort, however, involves states like North Carolina that have already had the good sense to ban the predators outright.

According to consumer advocates, if the feds aren’t careful in how they draft the new rules, they might conceivably legalize payday loans in places like North Carolina even as they’re cracking down on it in other states. Recently, dozens of the advocates in the states where payday loans  are already illegal (including several here in North Carolina) wrote the CFPB Director Richard Cordray urging him to carefully tailor any new rules to avoid  this problem.

In the letter, advocates urged the CFPB “to issue final rules that build on, rather than undermine, strong state protections and that enhance our ability to enforce them.”

The groups continued: “Indeed, it would be unacceptable for the CFPB to issue weak payday lending rules, which would likely usher in a new wave of predatory lending in non-authorizing states and throughout the country.”

Let’s hope the agency sees the obvious wisdom of allowing states to enact and keep consumer protection laws that are stronger than the soon-to-be implemented rules and of keeping the federal standards as a basic consumer protection floor, rather than a ceiling.

Click here to read the letter.

And for more information on stopping the payday lending debt trap, click here.