ProPublica, December 13, 2013 Five years ago, Naya Burks of St. Louis borrowed $1,000 from AmeriCash Loans. The money came at a steep price: She had to pay back $1,737 over six months. “I really needed the cash, and that was the only thing that I could think of doing at the time,” she said. The decision has hung over her life ever since. A single mother who works unpredictable hours at a chiropractor’s office, she made payments for a couple of months, then she defaulted. ...
Category: Personal Finance
Editorial: Hope That Consumer Bureau Will Rein in Payday Lending Industry
The New York Times, November 16, 2013 At some point — soon, we hope — the Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will issue regulations for the payday lending industry. The bureau took an important step in that direction when it announced earlier this month that it would begin collecting complaints from borrowers who may have been hit with unreasonable fees, unauthorized withdrawals from their checking accounts or other abuses. The bureau should rein in all of these practi ...
Alliance Commends Addition of Diversity to Reliance Bank Board of Directors
St. Louis Equal Housing & Community Reinvestment Alliance release, November 6, 2013 November 6, 2013 – SLEHCRA received word today that Reliance Bank appointed two new members to their Board of Directors that add to the racial and gender diversity. The two new board members are Michael McMillan, President and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, and Cheryl Jones, Executive Director of Girls Inc. As part of their Community Investment Partnership with SLEHCRA ...
Midland States Bank Criticized Over Minority Lending Practices
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 29, 2013 Only six black applicants were among the 1,503 St. Louis residents who sought home loans at Midland States Bank in the past four years, according to a community group seeking changes at the bank. The St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Investment Alliance wants the Federal Reserve to require such changes before it approves Midland’s purchase of Heartland Bank in St. Louis. Black applicants made up just 0.39 percent of applicants at ...
British Regulator Plans New Rules for Payday Lenders
New York Times, October 3, 2013 British regulators announced plans on Thursday to impose stiff new rules next year for payday lenders, whose business has grown sharply since the financial crisis. The new rules in Britain will include requirements that lenders properly evaluate whether a consumer can afford such a loan and to limit the number of times the loan can be rolled over. Lenders also will be required to provide consumers with sources of debt advice before refinancing ...
Bank Regulator Tells Eagle Bank & Trust to Improve Service to Community
St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance, August 2, 2013 Eagle Bank and Trust Company of Missouri has received a “Needs to Improve” rating on its Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) exam dated May 21, 2012. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released the CRA evaluations for banks that were recently evaluated on how services are meeting the credit needs of the community. The St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance (SLEHCRA) p ...
Editorial: Stop the Political and Economic Evil of Payday Lenders
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 11, 2013 In the payday loan industry can be found the full fruits of many of the political and economic evils that plague modern America. Joseph Pulitzer, founder of this newspaper, called it by its name 106 years ago: predatory plutocracy. On Sunday and Monday of last week, the Post-Dispatch co-published, with ProPublica, the independent investigation journalism organization, an examination of the payday loan industry written by Paul Kiel. Thi ...
High-Cost Lending Industry Remains Powerful in Missouri
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (ProPublica) - August 2, 2013 As the Rev. Susan McCann stood outside a public library in Springfield, Mo., last year, she did her best to persuade passers-by to sign an initiative to ban high-cost payday loans. But it was difficult to keep her composure, she remembers. A man was shouting in her face. He and several others had been paid to try to prevent people from signing. “Every time I tried to speak to somebody,” she recalls, “they would scream, ‘Li ...
High-Cost Lenders Work to Co-op African-American Leaders
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 5, 2013 In February 2012, the Rev. Starsky Wilson of St. Louis sat down at a table in the Four Seasons Hotel. The floor-to-ceiling windows revealed vistas of the city’s skyline. Lined up in front of him were two lobbyists and an executive, he remembers. The meeting was part of an extraordinary counteroffensive by payday and other high-cost lenders against a ballot initiative to cap what such lenders can charge in interest and fees. Outspending ...
Cordray’s Confirmation as Chief of CFPB Is Victory for Consumers
Senate Vote Ushers In New Era in Oversight of Lending Practices New York Times, July 17, 2013 WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was conceived by a Harvard professor, embraced by the Obama administration and pushed into law by Congressional Democrats determined to expand the federal government’s authority to protect borrowers from abusive lending practices — all in the space of just three years. Richard Cordray was confirmed as the Consumer Financial Pro ...
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