LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris issued a letter that urges the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to adopt regulations that would help protect consumers from harmful payday and small-dollar lending practices.
The CFPB wants to create the first countrywide regulatory floor to the payday lending industry. It believes this could work in harmony with California’s laws and regulations to help vulnerable consumers and mitigate debt issues.
“Together with California’s existing lending laws, the bureau’s proposals would bring needed protections to vulnerable California consumers who take out small-dollar loans, which too often are predatory and create a debt trap for fixed- and low-income borrowers,” Harris stated in the letter to the CFPB. “Californians who need short-term emergency access to cash are getting stuck in a destructive and unaffordable cycle of repeat high-interest loans that they cannot afford to repay.”
Harris supports the CFPB proposal, specifically in its goal to stop abuse from high-cost payday loans and collections. She would also like the CFPB to consider more measures, this time aimed at giving Californians who need small-dollar loans a meaningful alternative.