Statistician Patricia Cirillo explained after the hearing that predatory loans - high interest rates and onerous terms, usually to people whose impaired creditworthiness has made it impossible to get better terms - come with every so-called ”risk pool” of the lending industry. The collapse of the national home mortgage lending market, in large part due to predatory loans from once-respected lending institutions to people of good credit standing, is a case in point, she said. In any case, the conventional understanding is that so-called subprime loans, at interest rates above the prime rate available to the most creditworthy among us, are distinct from predatory lending, with its loan-shark interest rates and other advantage-taking business practices. A committee spokesman said the hearing treated payday lending as a part of predatory lending, a distinction strongly resisted by Cirillo in written testimony and at the witness table by Jamie Fulmer, director of public affairs for Advance America Cash Advance, a payday lending company. Payday lending is a comparatively new industry, he added, and CFSA best practices in payday lending, combined with reasonable regulation and advances for financial literacy in Indian country, will continue to spread measurable prosperity through communities. Ron Allen, secretary of the National Congress of American Indians and chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, called for financial literacy, banks, credit unions and community development financial institutions in Indian country, but also cautioned strongly against any kind of draconian new regulation that would drive payday lenders away from reservations. Read More