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ALTERNATIVE FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION
September 3, 2019
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Here's why a majority of millennials are rejected for loans, credit cards
Approximately 58 percent of millennials have been rejected for at least one financial product, a new survey has found.
The reason, according to the Bankrate.com report published Wednesday, is because of their credit score.
Meanwhile, the survey found that 53 percent of Generation X -- people aged between 39 and 54 -- and 27 percent of baby boomers -- aged between 55 and 73 -- have been denied a financial product.
"An unintended consequence of the CARD Act, which went into effect in 2010, is that it has become much harder for people in their early and mid-twenties to obtain credit," Bankrate credit card industry analyst Ted Rossman said in the report.
Read more at FOX BUSINESS
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Opinion: Payday lenders are just like any other business. Let the market decide
I have a problem with the city of Fort Worth trying to rein in the number of payday loan locations. (Aug. 28, 1A, "Fort Worth council offered five options to rein in payday loans")
Since when did it become the responsibility of the City Council to try and stifle any legal business in the community?
Even though some on the council don't like these businesses or think they don't serve customers' best interests, it is not their responsibility to judge what the residents want. We live in a market-driven business world, and customers will decide when a business survives or fails.
Back off and leave these businesses alone.
Read more at Fort Worth Star Telegram
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California Regulator: Lenders Moving Away From Small-Dollar Loans to High-Interest Installment Loans. by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.
California nonbank consumer lenders are moving away from small-dollar short-term payday loans and are, instead, embracing longer-term installment loans with amounts over $2,500 to avoid interest rate caps, according to the state's banking regulator. According to the Department of Business Oversight (DBO), this was the takeaway from reports it issued about two key lending laws: the California Financing Law (CFL) and the California Deferred Deposit Transaction Law (CDDTL), often called the payday lending law.
What happened
According to a press release about the reports quoting DBO Commissioner Manuel P. Alvarez, the movement away from payday loans "underscores the need to focus on the availability and regulation of small-dollar credit products between $300 and $2,500, and especially credit products over $2,500 where there are largely no current rate caps under the CFL." According to the CDDTL report, payday lending in the state dropped to its lowest levels in several years under various metrics. For example, the total number of loans and total amount borrowed dropped to their lowest levels since 2006. The number of consumers receiving payday loans fell to its lowest level since 2005; those customers also had fewer places to borrow from as the number of physical payday lending locations plunged to its lowest level since 2005. Read more at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.
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Bill Gates Says This 1 Employee Perk Is Most Important. A New Harvard Study Backs Him Up
It turns out employees want this, and it just might make them more productive.
Not long ago, Bill Gates shared what he thinks is the most important perk companies can give the best employees: flexible work arrangements.
Now a new study from Harvard Business School says companies that let their employees "work from anywhere" and work whenever they want wind up with employees who are more loyal, more productive, and cost less.
I suspect you're hearing from more employees who want this kind of arrangement. So, let's take a look at the latest studies, and then ask if there's room for this kind of flexibility in your business.
First, the recent study results. HBS professor Prithwiraj Choudhury and his colleagues say they compared how productive, loyal, and cost-effective employees at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office were when they were allowed to work flexibly.
Read more at Inc.
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Consumer Credit Origination, Balance and Delinquency Trends: Q2 2019
Gen Z, those individuals born in 1995 or after, increasingly took part in the consumer credit market during the first half of 2019. TransUnion's Q2 2019 Industry Insights Report found that growth is coming from the entire Gen Z demographic who are 18 years or older - not just those who became credit eligible for the first time.
"Both the newest and oldest members of the credit eligible Gen Z generation are beginning to enter the credit market for the very first time," said Matt Komos, vice president of research and consulting at TransUnion. "The rapid growth in Gen Z credit activity is occurring despite many of these individuals having grown up during the Great Recession. Though the recession itself lasted less than two years, its impact was felt for several years afterward. As we see more members of this group come of age, we naturally expect continued growth in credit activity by Gen Z, which we will monitor closely to compare to the behaviors of previous generations."
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Many minorities avoid seeking credit due to generations of discrimination. Why that keeps them back
- Decades of discrimination by the federal government and America's financial institutions has induced an almost trauma-like response in many people of color, particularly African Americans, making them less likely to seek credit.
- This defensive behavior often distances people of color from the very credit-granting institutions they need to thrive.
- The ramifications can prove devastating, as good credit impacts everything from mortgage rates to hiring decisions by employers.
For many minorities in America, it's an all too familiar scene.
An applicant who is a person of color and and applies for credit is either denied or gets much worse terms than a white borrower.
In fact, an investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit, found that 60% of the time, applicants who were people of color - and way more financially qualified than their white counterparts -nevertheless were offered higher-priced car loans, costing them an extra $2,662 each over the course of the loan.
Read more at CNBC
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ILLINOIS updates Consumer Installment Loan Act and Payday Loan Reform Act . by Buckley LLP
On August 23, the Illinois governor signed SB 1758, which amends the state's Consumer Installment Loan Act and the Payday Loan Reform Act. Generally, payday loans must be repayable in substantially equal and consecutive installments. The amendment clarifies that a "'substantially equal installment' includes a last regularly scheduled payment that may be less than, but not more than 5% larger than, the previous scheduled payment according to a disclosed payment schedule agreed to by the parties." The amendments take effect immediately.
Read at LEXOLOGY
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Fort Worth is largest Texas city to not regulate payday lending. Should it?
Fort Worth has several options if it wants to join the growing list of Texas cities that regulate payday lenders, and while some council members consider the matter urgent, others expressed caution over regulating the banking industry.
Nearly 70 Texas cities have enacted some kind of regulation to limit payday and auto title lenders, which have been criticized as predatory toward people with low incomes and other vulnerable populations, leaving Fort Worth as the only major city in the state to not take action.
City staff Tuesday presented five options to rein in payday loans, which ranged from regulation to simply educating people about best financial practices.
With a payday loan, borrowers take out a short-term loan for generally less than $500, with payment due on the borrower's next payday. Depending on the lender, borrowers pay a fee, about $10 to $30 for every $100 borrowed. If the loan is rolled over or renewed, fees are charged again. Texas doesn't limit fees. Read more at Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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Mobile payments have barely caught on in the US, despite the rise of smartphones
- Compared with China, India and other parts of the world, the U.S. is way behind in adopting mobile payments.
- It seems odd considering the ubiquity of smartphones in America. But experts say a deeply embedded legacy system and rewards cards, among other factors, make it unlikely that we'll see a major shift anytime soon.
- "The reality is we're not there yet," says Will Graylin, a former Samsung Pay executive. "There is simply not enough ubiquitous acceptance."
Despite growing smartphone dependence, most Americans still aren't using the devices to pay for things.
In other countries, it's a different story.
Places such as China and India are witnessing rapid adoption of smartphone payments. In China, for example, more than 80% of consumers used mobile payments last year, according to management consultancy Bain. In the U.S., major mobile payments apps had adoption rates of less than 10%.
"The U.S. is not a leader when it comes to mobile payments - at best, it's the middle of the pack compared to other countries," said Gerard du Toit, partner and head of the banking and payments sector of Bain's financial services practice in North America.
Read more at CNBC
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Payroll Advance Industry in Regulators' Crosshairs. by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.
The payroll advance industry is the subject of a newly announced multistate investigation seeking information to enable regulators to determine whether there is unlawful lending by online companies engaged in this business. Led by the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS), the 11 state regulators (plus Puerto Rico) are investigating whether payroll advance companies collect usurious or otherwise unlawful interest rates, often disguised as fees, tips or monthly memberships.
What happened
Employers have long allowed for payroll advances in which the company essentially advances to one or more of its employees' wages that have been earned but not yet paid. Businesses have no obligation to make such advances, also known as "early wage access," but many have done so as a courtesy to employees. To facilitate such advances, a separate, for-profit industry has developed in which employers arrange with such companies to advance funds to their employees on a variety of different terms, ranging from informal tips to service charges that may be relatively high in comparison with the dollar amount of the advance.
Read more at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.
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Legit Robocalls Get Snared in Crackdown on Scams
Your cellphone rings from a number you don't recognize. Reluctantly, you pick it up and discover it's an automated call from your credit card company, warning you that someone has fraudulently used your card to buy 10 plane tickets to Singapore. You won't have to pay the charges. Whew!
Amid state and federal efforts to crack down on scam robocalls, legitimate robocallers worry that calls like this one will be blocked too.
Last week, attorneys general from all 50 states plus the District of Columbia announced a new agreement with telecom companies to crack down on illegal calls and scams. The U.S. House and Senate both have approved measures to curb the scam calls and are currently ironing out the differences between them, and the Federal Communications Commission is working on its own anti-scammer rules.
Commercial software packages can limit the calls, and consumers are getting savvier about refusing to answer calls from unfamiliar numbers. Nevertheless, the number of both legitimate and scam robocalls continue to increase.
Read more at Pew Charitable Trusts
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Why LeadSherpa
* Increase Conversion by buying more good leads and fewer bad ones based on real-time data.
* Reduce CFD/CPL through weeding out under-performing leads prior to underwriting / decisioning
* Optimize lead performance by automatically adjusting waterfall based on real-time data
* It's time to automate the heavy lifting of lead buying and stop buying bad leads.
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How Many Bank Accounts Should You Have?
According to data from the Federal Reserve, there are currently 55-million unbanked Americans in the United States, accounting for 22-percent of US households.
In today's economy, it's essential to have a bank account. Those unbanked Americans may deal in cash or barter, but that doesn't help if you have to send money across the country, or bank a salary check.
Some may argue that the invention of peer-to-peer payment systems, such as PayPal, help to fill the void in banking, allowing unbanked individuals to send money to others.
Cryptocurrency also acts as another medium of exchange that's gaining popularity as well. However, many companies still don't accept Bitcoin or other cryptos for payments and services.
Read more at MONEYCHECK
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Advance Financial earns Inc. 5000 list ranking for the eighth consecutive year
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Aug. 23, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Inc. magazine revealed that Nashville-based fintech company Advance Financial is No. 1851 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. This is the eighth year in a row Advance Financial has made the Inc. 5000 list, and it's the only company in its industry to rank on the list five consecutive times or more.
Inc. magazine recognized Advance Financial for its revenue growth of 219 percent over the past three years. This tremendous growth was realized recently with the opening of the company's 100th store location in Tennessee and expansion of online services which now includes 12 additional states. The company currently employs over 1100 people as a result of this growth. Advance Financial is acknowledged as the second-largest family-owned company headquartered in Nashville by the Nashville Business Journal. ADVANCE FINANCIAL
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ACE Cash Express Raises $20,561 for the St. Jude Affiliate Clinic at Novant Health Hemby Children's Hospital
DALLAS, Aug. 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ACE Cash Express associates raised $20,561 during ACE's annual fundraising event, the Give A Little Campaign, for the St. Jude Affiliate Clinic at Novant Health Hemby Children's Hospital. The clinic, located in Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of eight St. Jude affiliate clinics across the country that provides life-saving medical care and access to clinical trials for children with cancer and blood disorders.
"When you have a sick child, the only thing you should have to worry about is being there for them," said Dr. Jessica Bell, pediatric oncologist and clinic lead at the affiliate clinic. "We appreciate this generous gift that will help local families in their fight against pediatric cancer."
Read more
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ALTERNATIVE FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION
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| Alternative Financial Service Providers Association
757.737.4088 315 Tuscarora St., Lewiston, NY 14092
[email protected]
www.afspassociation.com |
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