Credit Policy & Regulation

PPP Loan Fees for Banks

04/27/20

$10 billion of CARES Act funds are going to the banks, especially megabanks, in fees for making “small” business PPP loans. The fees, paid by the Small Business Administration, i.e. Treasury, range from 1% for loans above $2 million to 5% for loans below $350,000.

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PSLF update

04/20/20

The success rate for Public Service Loan Forgiveness applicants has doubled. From 1% to 2%.

Thinking they have completed their 10 years of payments, 140,000 student loan borrowers had applied for cancellation through February 29, and about 3,000 had received a discharge, including 1,300 under the “temporary expanded” PSLF who were put in the wrong repayment plan by their servicers.

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11th Circuit: Student Borrower Consumer Claims not Preempted by HEA

04/14/20

An 11th Circuit panel ruled last week that student loan borrowers may assert state law misrepresentation claims against a student loan servicer that falsely told them their FFEL loans qualified for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

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Hope for helping the prospective payday loan customer

12/17/19
Short term (payday) loans and high interest consumer installment loans
continue to deplete low income households of micro dollars and their
communities of macro dollars. Although the CFPB seems intent on supporting
the depletions, a good number of states have provided some relief. 
Even in states without interest rate limitations
there are a couple of ideas that can help.

Chris Peterson and Nathalie Martin have provided legal support

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Badawi & de Fontenay Paper on EBITDA Definitions

10/05/19

I confess that, on its face, this did not strike me as the most exciting topic to read about (and that comes from someone who writes about the incredibly obscure world of sovereign debt contracts).  After all, who even knows what EBITDA definitions are?  Sounds like something from the tax or bankruptcy code.  But don’t let the topic be off putting.  This is a wonderfully interesting project; and elegantly executed (here).  By the way, EBITDA stands for earnings before interest

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What Is "Credit"? AfterPay, Earnin', and ISAs

07/16/19
A major issue in consumer finance regulation in mid-20th century was what counted as “credit” and was therefore subject to state usury laws and (after 1968) to the federal Truth in Lending Act. Many states had a time-price differential doctrine that held that when a retailer sold goods for future payment, the differential between the price of a cash sale and that of credit sale was not interest for usury law purposes.
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The Student Loan Tax

04/29/19

Democrats’ policy proposals have sparked a vital and overdue debate on our system to pay for post-secondary education, and how that system burdens and redistributes income. The existing system combines a small share of taxpayer funding (via the Pell Grant) with a large share from the student loan tax. The student loan tax requires the students themselves to pay a percentage of their income for 20 to 25 years, collected not by the IRS but by private contractors for the US Education Department.

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Deleveraging is over

02/26/19

An unsustainable run-up in consumer housing debt and other debt was a fundamental structural cause of the 2008 global financial cScreen Shot 2019-02-26 at 11.59.42 AM

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New Paper: Consumer Protection After the Global Financial Crisis

02/13/19

Historian Ed Balleisen and I have just posted a paper of interest to Credit Slips readers who are interested in consumer protection, financial crises, and inputs into post-crisis policymaking more generally. I will let the abstract speak for itself:

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American Bar Association: exempt lawyers from FDCPA

11/19/18

The American Bar Association, at the urging of its debt collection lawyer members, is supporting HR 5082, which would partly exempt lawyers from the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

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