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Profiting from recession, payday lenders spend big to fight financial reform

03/02/2010 11:50 am 1 comment

The influential $42 billion-a-year payday lending industry, thriving from a surge in emergency loans to people struggling through the recession, is pouring record sums into lobbying, campaign contributions, and public relations – and getting results.

As the Senate prepares to take up financial reform, lobbyists are working to exempt companies that make short-term cash loans from proposed new federal regulations and policing. In state capitals around the country, payday companies have been fighting some 100 pieces of legislation aimed at safeguarding borrowers from high interest rates and from falling into excessive debt.

Last year, as the U.S. House drew up a financial reform bill, some lawmakers who were courted by the companies and received campaign contributions from them helped crush amendments seeking to restrict payday practices, a review by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund has found.

The failed amendments would have capped payday interest rates – which reach triple digits on an annualized basis — and would have limited the number of loans a lender could make to a customer. Working largely behind the scenes, the industry ended up dividing the Democratic majority on the 71-member House Financial Services Committee.

To read this article in its entirety visit The Huffington Post.

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http://www.noteletrackpaydayloansx.com noteletrack payday loans

I think it’s so sad what payday lenders will do in order to make sure people still need them. I mean, there aren’t places like Bank Of America anymore to get loans from. It’s so lame that they make the interest payments so high.

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