Payday Lender Zoning Ordinance Vote Today

In advance of today's city council vote on the payday lender zoning ordinance, The Right Reverend Joe Vasquez, Bishop of the Diocese of Austin, makes public the support for this ordinance by the Catholic Church, Central Presbyterian Church, United Christian Church and the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Bishop Vasquez gives an actual dollar amount to a problem Catholic Charities and other organizations that promote financial stability have with payday lenders.

"According to Bishop Joe Vasquez, about $1 million from Catholic charities statewide has gone to fix the messes left behind when people use payday lenders."

Craig Smith, Director of Governmental Affairs for Austin-based EZCorp, responded with the following statement.

"Blaming the alternative financial services industry for filling in where traditional lenders have deserted borrowers is misguided.

Like the restrictive lending ordinance passed by the City Council last August, the zoning ordinance currently being considered will actually hurt borrowers by further limiting the credit alternatives for Austinites who have been abandoned by the mainstream banking community." (Read the full statement.)

Actually, Austinites have not been "abandoned by the mainstream banking community." Instead Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, US Bank, and Credit Suisse have joined payday lenders such as EZCorp in preying on the poor by lending them money to expand their businesses and to make predatory loans, as indicated in the flowchart below from my earlier post.



My series of posts related to this subject matter follows:

Payday Lenders in Austin, Texas
A Volunteer Solution to Predatory Tax Refund Loans
The Cordray Index
The Cordray Index Losers
5.7 Lenders per Mile Update: Yet another auto title loan operation is opening at Manchaca and Stassney.
RAC and RAL
A Bite Out of the Poor
Netspend and BET Take a Bite Out of the Poor
ZestCash Takes a Bite Out of the Poor