News Topic: Small-dollar lending

The bureau determined that Triton Management Group had unfairly charged Mississippi consumers excess interest in violation of state law. ... Read full article

Paul Watkins served as chief counsel for the Arizona AG's 150-person civil litigation division and also headed up the office's fintech initiatives. ... Read full article

Republican lawmakers and consumer groups have reached an agreement on legislation designed to close a loophole in the state's interest rate cap. ... Read full article

A decades-old Fed charter could help banks develop new cooperatives to combat economic inequality. ... Read full article

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s bulletin is seen as just one piece of the regulatory puzzle to coax banks into installment lending. ... Read full article

Fair Financial, a digital banking platform developed by a Twin Cities nonprofit in partnership with a local bank, launched a pilot program this week. By 2020, it plans to serve 5,000 customers across the country. ... Read full article

The trend may be partially attributable to a strong economy. Growth in high-cost installment lending could also be a factor. ... Read full article

Despite recent encouragement from the OCC, banks still struggle to make a profit on short-term loans. ... Read full article

Just two months ago, Comptroller Joseph Otting seemed to signal that the OCC might be open to letting national banks rent their charters to payday lenders. Now he is clarifying that it won’t happen. ... Read full article

An OCC initiative to get more banks to make short-term loans that rival those of payday lenders isn't enough of an enticement. ... Read full article

While industry officials welcomed a bulletin from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency encouraging banks to develop alternatives to payday loans, they are making no commitments to offer such products. ... Read full article

The agency's bulletin opens the door to banks' making more short-term loans to borrowers with lower credit scores — with few parameters beyond "sound underwriting." ... Read full article

Regulators should revise existing rules to encourage banks to offer short-term loans to customers who run into financial emergencies. ... Read full article

The heads of Mastercard and Santander outlined the concrete steps their firms are taking to bring unbanked consumers into the financial system. ... Read full article

The congressional resolution to overturn the payday regulation comes as acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney has already said the agency will reconsider the rule internally. ... Read full article

The new law, which is modeled on a similar effort in the United Kingdom, aims to lure financial firms to the desert. It has drawn support from business organizations but opposition from consumer groups — a dynamic that is likely to be replayed in other ... Read full article

Just as promised, Republican lawmakers went to work Wednesday considering regulatory reform ideas that would go further than the Senate's tweaks of the Dodd-Frank Act. ... Read full article

The legislation, signed Monday by Gov. Rick Scott, authorizes 60- to 90-day loans of up to $1,000. It makes Florida the first state to pass a law designed to blunt the impact of the CFPB’s payday lending rule. ... Read full article