Lawyers’ Committee files against the rollback of financial bureau’s payday and auto loan protections

In October 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created the Payday Loan Rule, which protects low-income consumers and consumers of color from expensive, predatory loans aimed at those particular populations. In January 2018, the bureau announced that it would be rolling the rule back after only three months.

On May 15, 2019, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, along with pro bono counsel Crowell & Moring LLP, filed a comment on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to roll back the Payday Loan Rule. With this lawsuit, the Lawyers’ Committee seeks to ensure economic justice and protection for low-income consumers and consumers of color, who can no longer turn to the bureau for relief against predatory lending practices.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has prioritized the abusive creditors who run the payday loan industry rather than the consumers that the bureau is charged to protect. We know that payday and auto loans traditionally target low-income consumers and consumers of color: payday lenders in African-American or Latinx neighborhoods outnumber lenders in white neighborhoods two to one across the country. This historical predatory behavior has contributed to the racial and economic discrepancies that we fight to reverse today.