High-Cost Credit

This article explains why earned wage payday loans, while growing rapidly, are unsuccessful in evading federal and state consumer lending laws, resulting in significant private remedies under TILA, the Military Lending Act, state credit laws, and state UDAP statutes. The article describes the companies involved, the nature of the loans, and five recent court decisions supporting company liability.

The CFPB’s pared down Payday Loan Rule finally went into effect on March 30, 2025. This article explains three surprising facts about the rule’s importance to consumer practitioners: the rule’s provisions offer significant protections, apply to many forms of high-cost lending, and the rule offers substantial assistance in private litigation involving not only overdraft and NSF fees, but also any litigation involving high-cost lenders.

A May 30 Supreme Court decision limits federal preemption of state laws affecting banks, with broad implications for consumer credit and banking litigation. This article explains the Supreme Court decision’s key takeaways and practice implications, and then lists state laws unlikely now to be preempted. The article also lists transactions where federal banking preemption never applies.

Predatory lenders use rent-a-bank schemes to avoid the consumer’s home state usury limits by piggybacking onto federal rate exportation rights available only to banks. This article explains how banks and others participating in a rent-a-bank scheme could be in for a big surprise. They may not be immune from the consumer’s home state regulation of matters other than the actual interest rate, leading to powerful consumer remedies.

This article provides tips on advising lower income consumers on the many changes this tax season—including increased refund delays, increased problems with RACs, RALs, and paid tax preparers, growing use of private collection of IRS debt, and new requirements to renew ITINs. Also included are pointers on dealing with unaffordable taxes.

Effective October 3, Department of Defense rules limit interest rates to 36%, prohibit arbitration, and provide strong private remedies for all non-purchase money, closed end credit offered to the country’s 3 million servicemembers and their dependents, as described in this article.

An important recent Ninth Circuit ruling rejects a federal regulation as to when a national bank can ignore state law. This article explains how the decision underscores that federal regulators and some courts have been overly expansive in protecting banks from liability for violating state consumer protection laws.

The Supreme Court’s May 1 ruling in Bank of America v. City of Miami allows that city to continue its housing discrimination claims for banks’ predatory lending. This article explains how discrimination law is a useful tool to attack unfair lending practices.

This article details not only the CFPB’s June 2 proposed rule covering payday lending, auto title, and installment loans, but also links to practice tips on representing clients with these predatory loans and links to state-by-state analyses of applicable law.

The Talent-Nelson Military Lending Act (MLA), 10 U.S.C. § 987, enacted in 2006, imposes a 36% interest rate cap, bans mandatory arbitration, and imposes other restrictions on “consumer credit” extended to service members and their dependents. The MLA thus applies to more than 5 million Americans. The MLA though applies only to an individual who, at the time he or she becomes obligated on a...