By Terry Hagensen, Turtle River As a member of the group Minnesotans for Fair Lending, I have been made aware of the interest rates payday loan companies are charging their clients an interest rate as high as 203% APR. Impossibly high finance charges lead to repeat borrowing -- on average, customers are trapped into 10 loans per year.
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By Pastor Mark Papke-Larson
Payday loans are small-dollar loans due on the borrower’s next payday. In Minnesota, the 2020 Minnesota Department of Commerce report showed that the average payday loan size is $380, and the cost of borrowing this amount for two weeks computes to an appalling 273% APR. By Nancy Altmann
Payday lending is often advertised as “emergency relief,” but if you look at the data, there is nothing farther from the truth By Jody Godoy and Disha Raychaudhuri
(Reuters) – Borrowers in California took out 40% fewer payday loans in 2020 compared to the year before, the state’s consumer finance regulator said in an annual report on Thursday. In the winter of 2016, Missy Juliette, now 36 and of St. Paul, Minn., had to choose between paying the rent and settling overdue heating and electric bills. Her credit cards were maxed out, and her wages were being garnished for back taxes. Getting a small loan from a bank wasn’t an option, nor was borrowing from family. “I’d asked them for money before and couldn’t face the humiliation of it,” she says.
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