A Consumer Bill Gives Exemption on Payday Loans

By SEWELL CHAN

Senator Bob Corker wants a proposed bank agency to be more lenient, but critics say consumers would be hurt...more>>>

The Places They Go When Banks Say No

By ANDREW MARTIN

As traditional banks have spurned small businesses, many have turned to firms that provide a relatively expensive alternative: purchase-order financing...more>>>

These Rates Would Shock a Loan Shark

By JIM DWYER

At consumer debt court, high interest rates are the norm, but they are not illegal. That could change, though, if a new effort bears fruit...more>>>

Banks Balk at Agency Meant to Aid Consumers

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

The administration’s proposal for the new agency marks the first shot in a battle over how to regulate home mortgages, credit cards and other forms of lending...more>>>

Pay Pals

Senator Christopher Dodd should go after, not cozy up to, the payday-loan industry for its egregious exploitation of people’s desperation...more>>>

Lenders Thwart Ohio Law Intended to Limit High Interest on Payday Loans

By BOB DRIEHAUS

Despite a law capping the annual interest rate for short-term loans at 28 percent, some lenders are using different laws to charge up to 680 percent interest...more>>>

391 Percent Payday Loan

Congress should resist an ersatz reform that would allow lenders to continue to charge exorbitant interest rates on payday loans...more>>>

LETTERS; Check Cashers, Redeemed

Four letters on Douglas McGray's Nov 9 article on check-cashing services and payday loans; writers are Jose Cisneros, treasurer of city and county of San Francisco, Joseph Coleman, chairman of Financial Service Centers of America, Liana Molina of California Reinvestment Coalition and Donald M Seib..more>>>

Check Cashers, Redeemed

By DOUGLAS MCGRAY

Many low-income Americans were wary of banks even before the latest round of failures and takeovers. Is a semi-reformed payday lender the right guy to bring the urban poor into the banking system?..more>>>

Mailing Our Way to Solvency

By MICHAEL LIND

The United States should go back to using the one government institution that is found in most neighborhoods the post office as local savings bank...more>>>

Some States Set Caps to Control Payday Loans

By BOB DRIEHAUS

To aid borrowers, Ohio lawmakers push for new regulations capping payday loans...more>>>

LETTERS; Americans Living in a Material World

Letters from Stephen Lehman, Michael Weinstein, Kevin McNamara, Shari Jacobson, Michael A Nayor, Rob Fenstermacher and Lisa Calef comment on David Brooks June 10 Op-Ed column about American explosion of debt and financial polarization; drawing..more>>>

The Great Seduction

By DAVID BROOKS

The most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money...more>>>

LifeLock Identity Fraud Service Finds Skeptics

By RON LIEBER

How likely is it that an identity thief can do you real harm? And do you need to pay $100 a year for protection?..more>>>

Lending Plan Won Prize, but Will It Work Here?

By AMANDA M. FAIRBANKS

Women in Queens are the first U.S. clients of Grameen Bank, the international organization that pioneered “microloans” to third world entrepreneurs...more>>>