Strong Stance Taken Against South Carolina Payday Loans, Cash Advances
By Paul RizzoPayday Loan Writer
The Independent Mail puts it simply: the payday loan industry is evil, and South Carolina needs to ban it, just as neighbors have in North Carolina and Georgia.
We don’t deserve to call ourselves a civil society if we’re not prepared to outlaw activities that are offensive to human decency. I can’t think of any better example than the bad credit payday loan industry that preys on the weak, the ignorant and the helpless.
The industry’s maximum 391-percent annualized interest rate in South Carolina is obscene. This isn’t “emergency” lending. It’s exploiting the chronic financial insecurity of growing swath of our working families.
Why else would fast payday advance lending double in just the past five years?
Responsible lenders consider someone’s ability to pay. In this despicable industry, you need only a checking account and pay stub. Lenders bank on borrowers who can’t repay loans by payday, so they generate successive “new” loans and fees.
The typical payday borrower pays back $793 for a typical $325 loan, a study by The Center For Responsible Lending found.
Regulating the cash loan industry, as 37 states have done, isn’t enough.
So-called borrower protections, such as limiting the number of loans per borrower, leads to a “cat and mouse” game with the industry and borrowers themselves. Capping the annual interest rate to the still-high usury threshold of 36 percent is not a solution if loans are outstanding for months.
Gov. Mark Sanford’s disdain for industry regulation — under the guise of concern about driving the industry underground — tells you just how morally bankrupt his Libertarian ideology is.
As a society, we don’t think a “market” for sex means we should have legalized prostitution, so why should we say that a market for easy money should allow legalized extortion in the form of faxless payday loans?
Call your lawmakers and tell them to face down the well-oiled and well-financed payday lending lobbying machine.
