
Consumer Protection Bureau Aims to Roll Back Rules for Payday Lending - pseudolus
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/06/691944789/consumer-protection-bureau-aims-to-roll-back-rules-for-payday-lending
======
dawhizkid
Isn't the problem less about predatory payday loans and more an existential
issue around the fact that so many people can't afford to simply _live_?

People take these bad loans because they literally have no other choice. They
are using these loans to buy groceries and cover bills, not splurge on non-
essentials.

~~~
andrewla
I saw a tweet [1] that followed a thread on the concept that paydays are not
really a requirement any more -- it is totally possible with our existing
banking infrastructure to pay salaries on a more continuous basis, but we've
built up a huge amount of institutional momentum around the idea that running
payroll is a complex and laborious process that we want to infrequently.

By parallel in software engineering, branch merges/integrations used to be
very expensive (in cvs/subversion/perforce) and thus were done rarely, and
were more expensive and difficult because changes had more time to accumulate,
but with DVCSs the problem is flipped on it's head and now we merge branches
routinely without fear. We need to fix payroll so that running it on a nearly
continuous basis is possible.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1093187875166797824](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1093187875166797824)

~~~
numbsafari
Because the folks that use payday loans are most likely [a] not on a salary
and [b] have very inconsistent wages due to inconsistent scheduling and [c]
likely don't even have a bank account.

~~~
basementcat
I think you need a salary (or regular deposit of funds, such as a pension) to
qualify for a payday loan.

~~~
numbsafari
From what I have seen, they typically only ask for your most recent pay stub.

------
SpikeDad
Big benefit for payday lending companies who charge obscene fees mostly in
poor and minority areas of the country.

Which consumers is the CPB protecting?

~~~
andrewla
Arguably, the consumers that the CPB is protecting is those who are aware of
the fees and conditions but still require payday loans, who would be excluded
from consideration by the new rules [1], which do not change the interest rate
requirements but exclude some customers from eligibility.

If people didn't want these loans, the companies would not exist. If the loans
were capable of being serviced at a lower rate, then new companies would form
to offer lower fees and charge less interest. The biggest blocker to the
latter, ironically, is regulations that aim to prevent new payday loan
companies from forming by requiring compliance with industry best practices.

This is a classic example of "regulation made the problem worse, let's add
more regulation and see if that fixes it."

[1]
[https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/CFPB_Proposes_...](https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/CFPB_Proposes_Rule_End_Payday_Debt_Traps.pdf)

~~~
CydeWeys
> Arguably, the consumers that the CPB is protecting is those who are aware of
> the fees and conditions but still require payday loans, who would be
> excluded from consideration by the new rules [1], which do not change the
> interest rate requirements but exclude some customers from eligibility.

I'm not sure many such people exist. Surely the vast majority of payday loan
companies' customers are not these kinds of people, but rather, people who are
being taken advantage of.

~~~
chris_va
"Also, the official, who spoke to journalists on condition of anonymity, said
that if the rule had kicked in, some two-thirds of borrowers wouldn't qualify
for a payday loan."

... pretty brutal. From the CFPB[1], 82% of loans are renewals, and ~50% are
longer cycles of debt. So, naively, of the 66% of _people_ no longer eligible,
one might expect 75% (50%/66%) of those to be stuck in a debt cycle and 25%
(16%/66%) to no longer have access to credit.

[1]
[https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201403_cfpb_report_payda...](https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201403_cfpb_report_payday-
lending.pdf)

------
rayiner
The rules were misconceived to begin with, by people who mistook the symptoms
for the problem. There is a ton of competition in payday lending—there is zero
reason to believe that payday lending rates are higher than the efficient
amount. There is no hint of market failure, systemic risk, or any of the other
criteria that typically justify regulating financial institutions.

That means this rule wasn’t really a _consumer protection regulation_ but
rather a _moral regulation_. It’s not in the vein of Dodd-Frank, but rather
blue laws and the prohibition on buying cooked food with food stamps. People
don’t like the moral implications of what it means to be poor, so they try to
legislate the symptoms. The result is denying poor people access to credit.

EDIT: I see people hand waving about fraud and hidden fees and lack of
transparency. But if you look at the rules, they don’t address such things:
[https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-
final...](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-finalizes-
rule-stop-payday-debt-traps). They are restrictions on who can borrow and how
much.

~~~
CydeWeys
Payday lenders are predatory. They want to get people locked into a cycle of
debt, so that they can charge many times the original amount in interest per
_year_. I'm surprised to see anyone defending them.

~~~
rayiner
And Facebook and Google want to get you locked in a cycle of mindless browsing
and ad consumption. The difference is that Facebook and Google operate in
markets with high barriers to entry resulting in fat profit margins. Payday
lenders, by contrast, operate in a market with immense amounts of competition.
There’s one on every block in most places.

Payday lenders don’t lock people in cycles of debt. What looks people in
cycles of debt is that their income levels are marginal so any unexpected
event can totally derail them.

I have a paid off car. When I got into a fender bender, I needed to pay $2,500
out of pocket to fix it because I don’t carry insurance for damage to my own
vehicle. If I was poor, what would I do? I can go to a payday lender, who has
to charge high fees because poor people are high risk. I’m caught in a cycle
of debt—because I couldn’t afford that expense to begin with. But at least I
can get around. If you take away that option, I don’t get my car fixed and
lose my job. That’s the alternative.

~~~
Angostura
> If you take away that option, I don’t get my car fixed and lose my job.
> That’s the alternative.

Except the rule that is being killed is the one that told lenders they needed
to check to ensure that the borrower would be able to pay the loan back.

In your case, with your car and your job, you would pass this test. And if you
couldn’t then lending the money would put you in a _worse_ position than
immediate unemployment

~~~
rayiner
> And if you couldn’t then lending the money would put you in a worse position
> than immediate unemployment

I’m glad some upper middle class attorney or policy wonk at CFPB gets to make
the decision that it’s better for me to lose my job than to deal with debt I
can’t repay!

~~~
Angostura
I sense a touch of sarcasm, but yes it's a good idea to have a set of
transparent, set rules that can be used to decide whether you will be able to
repay, or whether you are set to enter into an ever increasing debt-spiral
with a predatory company.

------
westurner
From the article:

> _The way payday loans work is that payday lenders typically offer small
> loans to borrowers who promise to pay the loans back by their next paycheck.
> Interest on the loans can have an annual percentage rate of 390 percent or
> more, according to a 2013 report by the CFPB. Another bureau report from the
> following year found that most payday loans — as many as 80 percent — are
> rolled over into another loan within two weeks. Borrowers often take out
> eight or more loans a year._

390%

From [https://www.npr.org/2019/02/06/691944789/consumer-
protection...](https://www.npr.org/2019/02/06/691944789/consumer-protection-
bureau-aims-to-roll-back-rules-for-payday-lending) :

> _TARP recovered funds totalling $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested,
> earning a $15.3 billion profit or an annualized rate of return of 0.6% and
> perhaps a loss when adjusted for inflation.[2][3]_

0.6%

~~~
milesdyson_phd
They are ultra short term loans, so the rate is going to be outrageous when
expressed as an APR...

~~~
pessimizer
Surprised that LIBOR is anywhere near 390%...

------
nopriorarrests
I have some insights into payday loans industry. Mostly in Europe, though, but
I think these are industry-wide observations.

1\. Levels of fraud are epidemic. Absolute majority of clientele have no
credit score or have rather shitty one, so it's hard to score people properly,
like banks do. You end up with rejecting almost everyone or lending a lot to
people who have no intention to pay it back. Naturally, you factor it into
your interest rate, what are your other options?

Ironically enough, the possible solution to this is "social score credit"
system being adopted in China. Some authority which can quickly guarantee that
you are poor, but law-abiding citizen.

2\. As I've mentioned in this thread already, some payday lenders issue bonds,
and these bonds are _high yield_. Markets do not see this business as a money
making machines. Any macroeconomic shock can raise defaults 2-3x times
(because, unlike clients of traditional banks, these folks are 1 step from
complete insolvency), so when you are buying payday lender bonds, you are
betting on, essentially, no recession for next 3-5 years.

~~~
tantalor
> Levels of fraud are epidemic... you factor it into your interest rate

What does that have to do with fraud? Who is the fraud?

> Ironically enough... "social score credit"

This is the very problem social credit score is intended to solve. How is it
ironic?

~~~
nopriorarrests
>What does that have to do with fraud? Who is the fraud?

What does interest rate have with fraud? Well, for each 1000$ loaned out, say,
$100 will be defaulted by some honest dude who had no money to pay back in
time, and $100 will be loaned to someone who had no intention to pay it back.
Numbers are random of course, but they give the idea.

To keep your business operating, you have to charge enough interest to
compensate both for $100 honest default and $100 loaned to fraudster.

~~~
stevesimmons
Plus, in order to get those 20% loss rates, you have to decline 80% of people,
and half the 20% accepted will decide the rates are too expensive. So only 10%
of applicants end up taking a loan. Then a $10 per application
marketing/processing cost and $5 per application decisioning cost translates
to $150 cost per loan booked.

Using the numbers above, it would cost $350 to lend $1000. That's 35%. If the
loan term is 2 months, the APR is annualized by compounding that 35% 6 times,
giving 500%. If the loan is amortizing, the APR calculation comes out a lot
higher, probably more like 1000%.

This is the fundamental economics of high-cost, short-term credit (HCSTC).

It is UK, where I am, HCSTC is highly regulated by the FCA. The nominal
interest APRs are less important that a regulatory rate cap: customers cannot
be charged more than 100% total interest and fees for loans up to 12 months.

~~~
nopriorarrests
>This is the fundamental economics of high-cost, short-term credit.

Exactly. People see 300% APR and think about it like it's applied to their
premium credit card, the financial product they are familiar most, and get
into rage without trying to run the numbers first.

------
i_am_proteus
I'm of the mind that many of these lenders are indeed predatory, but
prohibiting loans to high-risk borrowers at realistic rates (based on the
risk) just leaves them unbanked rather than poorly-banked.

~~~
carbocation
Payday loans are some of the things _that the unbanked turn to_. Using a
payday loan shark does not make one banked.

~~~
patio11
Payday loans structurally require you to be banked.

The offering is "I will advance you $400 in cash today for a $415 check dated
in a week. You can come back and buy your check back for $415. If you do not,
I will deposit it." The security here _is the check drawn on your checking
account_; without that the payday loan has markedly higher collection costs
and markedly lower probability of collection.

Also, they use the fact of writing a check to (in some jurisdictions) gain
legal leverage that they would not otherwise have access to, because making
someone a promise to pay and failing to follow through with it is generally
under the notice of criminal law, but (in some jurisdictions) writing a check
which one knows to be unbacked by funds is a criminal offense.

~~~
juliusmusseau
I don't think they take cheques anymore. At least not in Canada?

When I took out a payday loan they made me sign a PAD authorization (pre-
authorized debit) that was timed to hit my account the same day as my next
payroll.

They also needed my last bank statement so they could 1.) verify my payroll
was through direct deposit, and 2.) help them estimate the right date for
their PAD.

In other words: yup! You must be banked!

------
dbinder
Nothing bothers me more than people making excuses for firms that charge
outrageous rates. If your underwriting is so poor that you cannot maintain a
profitable business without charging an arm and leg, you don't deserve to be
in business. Having a looming cap on interest rates has driven innovation in
payment schedules, collateral, and user experience across the industry.
Constraints breed creativity. They only winner here is the lender who would
have been out of business due to the law, we would be better out without them.

------
dawhizkid
I'm surprised that Prize Linked Savings Accounts (PLSAs) aren't more
mainstream ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize-
linked_savings_account](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize-
linked_savings_account)). Legality is state dependent I believe, and CA just
passed into law late last year.

Plenty of studies show that they encourage more savings from those who
previously did not save.

------
pseudolus
The legal loophole that some payday lenders exploit to bypass state civil and
criminal usury laws involves subjecting the loan (regardless of where the
borrower lives) to the law of a jurisdiction where such loans are not illegal.
[0].

[0] [https://www.cnbc.com/id/49035819](https://www.cnbc.com/id/49035819)

------
jopsen
Why don't other countries have problems with payday lending?

My guesses: \- People aren't as desperate \- Lending can only happen though
banks \- Loans can't be given to you can't prove reasonable chance of
repayment \- You can't garnish people paycheck below a certain amount, so
payday lender would never get any money.

Any other explanations?

~~~
viraptor
> Why don't other countries have problems with payday lending?

Why do you think they don't?

~~~
jopsen
I live in Denmark... I haven't seen any payday lenders.

Sure you can get a loans from companies that seem sketchy, but the amounts are
more in the range of 2-5k USD, not a few hundred dollars..

------
cletus
There's an episode of the Netflix documentary series "Dirty Money"
specifically about payday lending. Lots has been written about it too. I
believe John Oliver has a bit about it too.

This isn't about "freedom" and letting people make their own mistakes. It's
basically a disgusting predatory practice designed to deceive and take
advantage of the desperate and uninformed. When you look into it, what becomes
clear is that people are intentionally deceived into thinking that that after
X payments come out of their account the loan is repaid (when those are just
"fees"). The agreement language is almost indecipherable.

Some states have tried to regulate this, which has typically just meant
renaming things to get around legislation (if it ever gets that far).

You could probably mostly solve these problems by classifying fees that scale
with the size of the loan as "interest". Perhaps people don't understand that
if you borrow $100 the fee is $15 (per pay period) while at $300, the fee
might be $40-50. It's not fixed. How exactly is this not interest?

You see ads on TV for this kind of product. What's funny is one of them is
that one says "not available in New York for legal reasons" or somesuch. It's
kind of sad that only the state of New York seems to have usury laws to
prevent this.

What's also interesting is how payday lenders increasingly try and shield
themselves from legal action using the sovereign immunity of native tribes
(patent trolls also increasingly are trying this). The Netflix documentary has
more on this.

Payday lenders are big donors to state politicians. In one example, a Texas
assemblywoman who criticized the industry quit and was a lobbyist for that
industry within weeks of that criticism. I forget her name.

------
dawhizkid
Is getting paid daily vs biweekly actually the antidote to payday lending?

There's a few Silicon Valley cos that enable this and they seem to have become
really popular.

Could it really be that simple?

~~~
jdavis703
No. I have family who have/had payday loans. From my personal experience
they're taken up because an emergency happens, not because the money ran out 2
days before payday. A daily payday drip might make sense for some consumers,
but what's really needed are accounts that start to build up an automatic
emergency fund, and perhaps also look at past banking history to quickly give
an emergency loan that is automatically repaid when the next direct deposit
hits.

~~~
CydeWeys
There's been some success with lottery savings accounts in other countries.
The idea is that it's very hard to get people interested in saving if they'll
only see a handful of bucks per year in interest on the kinds of amounts
they'd be saving, but if that saving instead enrolls in a lottery they could
see a huge return.

Basically, turn small predictable gains into smaller predictable gains plus
much larger unpredictable gains, so that people start redirecting money spent
on the lottery (which is a big net negative for them) into money in savings
accounts (a net positive for them). And then, as a bonus, they also have money
saved up for an emergency.

~~~
dawhizkid
Agreed. Given the new fintech wave, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a
Digit or Acorns competitor for prized-linked savings account rolled out yet.

------
lifeisstillgood
So regarding the idea of charging high rates to compensate for the extra risk

Looking at the St Louis Fed (I assume a good source of data)
[[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categories/32440](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categories/32440)]
credit card defaults average around 5% and mortgage defaults at 2.5%
(handwaving 2008 recession)

So ... even with my bad maths ... if I am going to get 95% of all my loans
back, I need to charge the 95% and extra 5.25% to break even

To avoid the unbanked problem, that's moving average 25% credit card rate to
27.5%.

It does not seem to me that 'the unbanked are too risky" is really an issue.

~~~
larrywright
I'm not defending this industry, but I don't think you have all of the facts.
These businesses serve people who can't get traditional credit cards and
loans. They have massively higher default rates - more like 20%.

------
seibelj
There is still no law against spending your entire paycheck on lotto tickets,
nor taking out a loan and spending it entirely on lotto tickets. The
government seems to pick and choose what mistakes they allow their citizens to
make.

~~~
Someone1234
Nowhere in the regulations is government banning PayDay loans (now or
previously). This is about setting limits on just how much profit they can
make per loan (since financial complexity makes it trivial to hide the true
dollar cost).

And actually lotteries are heavily regulated, particularly in relation to
odds, costs, and complexities. You know, when you buy a ticket, exactly how
little chance you have.

~~~
pjscott
That is, in effect, a limit on how risky their loans can be if they want to
stay in business. The more likely someone is to default on a loan, the higher
the interest rate needs to be in order for it to have a positive expected
value for the lender.

Or, to put it another way: the more restrictive the cap on interest, the more
poor people become unable to get an emergency loan under any circumstances.

------
tomohawk
Relatedly, it's interesting to see who was involved in creating the original
rules.

[https://freebeacon.com/issues/cfpb-worked-with-exposed-
antif...](https://freebeacon.com/issues/cfpb-worked-with-exposed-antifa-
leader-on-payday-loan-rule/)

------
wnevets
Just another one of those make america great again ideas.

------
ccnafr
I'm shocked! The Trump administration siding with lobbyists instead of
citizens? Shocked, I tell ya'!

------
skh
If we amended the Constitution of the United States to state that only
corporations count as people then our politicians would no longer be lying
when they say they support the people. We would finally be living in a country
in which the peoples' will is done and be a country in which the peoples'
voice was regularly heard.

~~~
matt4077
Don’t go down this road of destructive cynicism.

This issue is a good example: not “all politicians” are selling out citizen
for company profit. There is one party that restricted predatory practices in
lending, and the other party is now rolling this back.

I know there is plenty of criticism for every party, in every country, ever.
You will never find a politician you completely agree with unless you run for
office yourself.

But this specific example shows there are, indeed, two vastly different
options available in US politics.

~~~
skh
I appreciate your sentiments and view. I went down cynical route a long time
ago though. I lost all faith in 2009/2010 when it became clear that Obama and
the Democrats took Wall Street money on the understanding that they would not
prosecute the great frauds they engaged in.

------
firasd
Anytime I see people defend this kind of practice, the John Ruskin quote comes
to mind: “The dullest of all excuses for usury is that some kind of good is
done by the usurer.”

~~~
towelr34dy
I've had to take out loans for my business that were at usury rate.

It saved me.

If it wasn't there, if it was regulated out of existence; I'd have gone to a
shark. I was not going to let cash flow cause me failing.

Having said that, I'm very happy there was a lender of last resort that won't
break my legs. Despite them screwing me in fees.

Honestly, I've never understood people who suffer from legislitis:

They see a population suffering so bad they get desperate and do something bad
to get relief from their suffering.

The population that isn't suffering then decides that it's too horrible to
watch the population that suffers do desperate bad things to get relief.

So then they decide to: Ban the bad thing people do for relief when they are
desperate. All while not ameliorating the suffering that cause the desperate
bad relief efforts.

Whether it's drugs, bad lending, prostitution, whatever. If someone is
desperate enough to want to get into that, why make it harder? History has
shown these consenting adults are going to do it in their private property
(despite the horror of those who are well off enough to not feel desperate
enough to engage in such situations)

I mean, no where do they seem to be hinting at creating a government agency
for lending of last resort. We already basically create money out of thin air.
We COULD be lending it out at whatever usury rates, but by the government, and
given equally to the whole population maybe? This could create a floor and a
large enough competitor to drive the worst offenders out of business. I don't
know. Just seems like there could be things done to help people. But the
efforts seem focused on restricting people.

~~~
dajohnson89
The people using paydays loans usually aren't entrepreneurs, so your example
-- while an interesting case -- doesn't apply to the spirit of the regulation.

When I had my first real job out of college, I didn't manage my money well and
ran out of cash well before my next payday. I went to a check-cashing type of
place to try and get a payday loan, but the state had outlawed them a couple
of years prior. Had I been granted a payday loan, there's a good chance I'd
still be in a cycle of debt stemming from that.

~~~
jdietrich
_> The people using paydays loans usually aren't entrepreneurs, so your
example -- while an interesting case -- doesn't apply to the spirit of the
regulation._

If you have no access to better credit, payday loans are often the least-worst
option. If your car breaks down and you have no other means of getting to
work, borrowing a few hundred bucks at usurious rates is probably better than
losing your job. If you've received a parking ticket and don't have the cash,
paying $18 to borrow $80 for two weeks might be better than going to court and
paying a $160 fine plus costs.

The situation is analogous to drug prohibition - banning payday loans just
pushes people towards criminal lenders, who charge even higher interest rates
and enforce payment with baseball bats. The only credible solution is to
improve access to credit for the poor, whether that's through the expansion
and promotion of credit unions or some kind of state-subsidised emergency
lending facility.

~~~
hoaw
> If you have no access to better credit, payday loans are often the least-
> worst option.

Just isn't a very relevant argument. The reason you regulate things are
because they provide, often strong, value to one or multiple parties but
overall negative effects. Either eventually to the parties themselves or
society at large. It is essentially a way to control externalities. So you
would have to argue that these benefits are greater than the negatives.

> The only credible solution is to improve access to credit for the poor [...]

If payday loans are legitimate there is unlikely to be a need for such a
solution.

~~~
jdietrich
_> If payday loans are legitimate there is unlikely to be a need for such a
solution._

Payday loans are often the least-worst option, but that doesn't prevent us
from creating a better option. The _best available option_ is not the same as
the _best possible option_.

I'm not opposed to regulation if it is sensible and proportionate, but there
is a huge knee-jerk reaction against payday lending that strikes me as
paternalistic and mean-spirited. Assuming that poor people are being suckered
by exploitative lenders is not a helpful starting point for what is a
relatively complex social issue. I made my position clear in my original post
- if you want to help poor people, then you should offer them more affordable
credit rather than simply further restricting their ability to access what
little credit is available to them.

If payday lenders really are ripping off the poor, then it shouldn't be
difficult to outcompete them with a more affordable product; if it turns out
that it's just expensive in percentage terms to lend small amounts of money
for short periods of time to people who might not pay you back, then it may be
necessary to provide subsidized loans.

~~~
hoaw2
> Payday loans are often the least-worst option, but that doesn't prevent us
> from creating a better option.

It does. It isn't a realistic assumption that you as a society aren't going to
regulate payday loans and at the same time be concerned about the well-being
of those in need of them. Nations who care about peoples well being, also
restrict access to things that hurt them. Because anything else would be
working against that interest.

You do realize that there are any number of ways to have a bad time in the US.
Payday loans aren't unique in any regard. It isn't therefor likely that this
would be fixed sooner than anything else. The people who need payday loans
already suffer from injustice. That payday loans themselves would also be
unjust wouldn't be surprising, at all.

Why do you think people who can get fired, evicted, don't have health care or
even die giving birth would suddenly be cared for when it comes to affordable
credit, especially after legalizing unaffordable credit? Is the government is
going to come in an fix this one issue in competition of the companies
operating in the market?

------
refurb
This decision really comes down to are people better off if:(1) they have
access to loans even if they are high fee or (2) they are better off if they
can’t get the loans at all?

~~~
minikites
Why are those the only two options? Is there a shortage of wealth in the USA?

~~~
larrywright
How exactly does that work? Person A had an unexpected expense and needs a
little help, so we just take it out of the pocket of Person B, who happens to
be the nearest wealthy person?

~~~
dlp211
If that was what payday loans were actually used for then their existence
would be a little bit easier to justify. That isn't what payday loans are used
for. They are usury of the worst kind taking advantaged of the worst off in
our society.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend I have a definitive solution, but
perhaps bringing actual banking to these neighborhoods would be a good start.

~~~
larrywright
It's not about having bank branches nearby, it's about people that can't get
traditional loans or credit cards. These are loans of last resort for people
that don't have enough (or good enough) credit. The default rate on these is
around 20%.

I don't have a solution either, but this is a more nuanced issue than just not
having a bank nearby.

~~~
dlp211
You are making the assumption that all banks have to work the same. Even at a
default rate of 20%, that doesn't justify the 300% APRs that payday lenders
charge.

And I agree that banking is not a sufficient solution, but it is absolutely a
necessary condition for solving this crisis.

------
param
Here is the best argument in favor of the change: >> if the rule had kicked
in, some two-thirds of borrowers wouldn't qualify for a payday loan

If the above is true (and not fake news), I would like to understand how the
industry was expected to survive with 2/3rd of its customer base taken away in
an instant; and what alternative services these customers would have been
routed to...

~~~
elipsey
What do you think "fake news" means, and how would this statement qualify?

"[...]the official, who spoke to journalists on condition of anonymity, said
that if the rule had kicked in, some two-thirds of borrowers wouldn't qualify
for a payday loan."

Unless you want to insinuate that NPR completely fabricated this story to
drive engagement, you should probably just say "incorrect" or something like
that.

~~~
pessimizer
"anonymous administration official"

