Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Can Banks Disrupt the Payday Lending Business?
Can Banks Disrupt the Payday Lending Business?
Oct 14, 2026 12:49 PM

Since its inception in the 1990s, the payday lending industry has grown at an astonishing pace. Currently, there are about 22,000 payday lending locations — more than two for every Starbucks — that originate an estimated $27 billion in annual loan volume.

But payday lenders may soon face some petition. A few of the largest consumer banks in America are considering goingto market with new small-dollar installment loan products, reports the American Banker.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the U.S. government’s consumer protection agency, isconsidering proposing rulesthat would end payday debt traps by requiring lenders to take steps to make sure consumers can repay their loans. One of the proposals is to exempt lenders from certain requirements if the amount the consumer is required to pay each month is no more than 5 percent of the consumer’s gross monthly e. According to American Banker:

[T]he banks said if the 5% exemption is part of the proposal, they believe they can offer a product that would satisfy regulators. A mockup of what the product could look like would be a $500 five-month loan for a borrower with an annual e of $30,000 and monthly payments of $125 (or 5% of the borrower’s $2,500 average monthly e). After assuming a 6% loss rate (which would parable to similar installment loans currently on the market), automation expenses and servicing fees, a bank could net roughly $70 while the borrower would be on the hook for $125. The average cost of a similar payday loan product would be closer to $750.

“The 5% payment option is the only part of the CFPB proposal that could save millions of borrowers billions of dollars,” said Nick Bourke, director of the small-dollar loans project at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “It would enhance underwriting while pliance costs by capping the monthly payment at 5% of the borrower’s e with a term up to six months.”

The banks wouldn’t make much money off of these types of loans, but as the article notes, they would increase goodwill with munities and potentially entice under-banked consumers to use other banking services and products.

The CFPB is set to announce the beginning of the payday lending rulemaking process next Thursday, June 2nd at a field hearing in Kansas City.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Krugman: Aliens Worth More to Economy than Men and Women (VIDEO)
Paul Krugman made the mistake of over-sharing this past weekend when he told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he thinks that the United States economy would benefit from a military build-up to fight made-up space aliens. He’s been defended as being fed up with Republican obstructionism, being desperate to make a point, or even being wholly pletely correct. He’s entirely wrong though, and his thinking (what there is of it) is an example of the kind of depersonalized economics that has cost...
Anthony Bradley: ‘Black and Tired’ at The Heritage Foundation
Next Thursday, Acton Research Fellow Anthony B. Bradley will give a talk at The Heritage Foundation on his latest book, Black and Tired: Essays on Race, Politics, Culture and International Development. In his book, Dr. Bradley addresses local and global disparities in human flourishing that call for prudential judgments connecting good intentions and moral philosophy with sound economic principles. Marvin Olasky has said of the work, Dr. Thomas Sowell, black and eighty years old, displays no signs of tiredness in...
Wringing Hands Over Dominionism
Michelle Goldberg has a column up at the aptly named Daily Beast letting us all know that we really need to worry about something called “Dominionism” which supposedly prevails among Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and folks who support their campaigns. Reinhold Niebuhr once warned of the dangers of religious illiteracy. Here we have exhibit A. Goldberg claims Bachmann and Perry are “deeply associated” with this “theocratic strain” of Christian fundamentalism. Yes, they are probably so deeply associated with it that...
Progressive Boot Firmly Planted on Ranchers’ Throats
More than a billion dollars has already been pledged to relieve victims of the drought-turned-famine ravaging the Horn of Africa. The stricken countries—Somalia in particular—do not have the technology and the infrastructure to deal with a major drought, and so in what is ing a regular occurrence, the West is stepping in with aid. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Texas and Oklahoma are suffering record droughts that are wiping out crops and taxing cattle businesses. Ranchers cannot rely on the...
New Amsterdam Redivivus
As part of our ongoing engagement with the Protestant world, the Acton Institute has taken on the translation of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace, under the general editorship of Stephen Grabill and in partnership with Kuyper College. We’re convinced that renewed interest in the thought of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), and in fact rediscovering aspects of his thought that have been lost or misconstrued in the intervening decades, is critically important for the reconstruction of Protestant social thought. So it’s a big...
Religions’ reactions to financial realities
John Baden, chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment in Bozeman, Mont., wrote a column for the August 19 Bozeman Daily Chronicle about the Circle of Protection and Christians for a Sustainable Economy and how each has formulated a very different faith witness on the federal budget and debt debate. Baden says that the CASE letter to President Obama is “quite remarkable for it reads like one written by respected economists and policy analysts.” I attended...
If Corporations Are Making Your Child Fat, Run Crying to Mommy
The New York Times ran an op-ed yesterday by Canadian legal scholar Joel Bakan, the author of a new book titled Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children.Bakan argues that the 20th century has seen an increase in legal protections for two classes of persons, children and corporations, and that one of these is good and one is terribly, terribly bad—mean, even. That furthermore, there has been a kind of inexorable, Hegelian clash between the Corporation and the Child,...
World Youth Day: Pope talks profits and people
On his flight to World Youth Day in Madrid this morning, Pope Benedict XVI responded to a question about the current economic crisis. Not sure what the question was, but the well-respected Italian Vatican analyst Andrea Tornielli captured the reply. Here’s my quick translation of the Pope’s answer: The current crisis confirms what happened in the previous grave crisis: the ethical dimension is not something external to economic problems but an internal and fundamental dimension. The economy does not function...
Work As Worship
Do you view the work you do each day as worship, or is it something you do to pass the time or merely collect a paycheck? Remember work is not only the actions you perform to obtain a pay check, but includes any action “people do to earn a living.” Signs indicate that evangelical practice is entrapped in a dangerous snare of limitation placence. By placing almost sole emphasis on Bible study, worship attendance, and giving/tithing — the churchly aspects...
Another Run at the “Dominionism” Meme
In my last post, I rejected the contention by Michelle Goldberg and others that evangelical leaders such as Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry are significantly influenced by the aims of the tiny Christian Reconstructionism movement. I tried to make the point that CR has a negligible political influence on evangelicals and that it is not honest to view evangelical office holders and candidates in the light of CR’s aims. The entire thing, I think, is a tar baby sort of...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved