Critics and Advocates Debate Federal Payday Loan Policy

EPF May 2, 2019

As a subcommittee of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, the Consumer Protections and Financial Institutions Committee met Tuesday in Washington to discuss the CFPB’s decision to rescind 2017 regulations that were designed to eliminate debt traps caused by payday and car title loans.

Speaking to Congressional leaders – pastors, activists, professors and executives took to the floor to voice their opinion regarding the proposed changes.

Here are some of the highlights:

Reverend Fredrick Douglass Haynes III – Senior Pastor:

“As pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, I have heard too many share their experience of being exploited and ensnared in the payday debt trap. One of my members, a 74 year old senior citizen, who is feisty andfiercely independent, discovered she didn’t have the money to pay a bill. She saw a commercial for a payday loan and felt it was an answer to prayer. Now she feels like the devil answered her prayer. She is on a fixed income and when the repayment was due, she didn’t have enough and had to take out another loan to pay the first one. She ended up with a dozen loans. When she approached me for help one Sunday after church, this once proud senior saint with good credit, was ashamed and tearful. She showed me the paperwork. I was appalled. The interest rate was 620%! She was ‘dealt a bad hand with a bad plan.’ She was hurting for help. She took the bait of the