A year ago, the future of short-term, small-dollar loans in the U.S. — better known colloquially as payday loans — was rather grim. The CFPB was a few weeks away from releasing new draft regulations, and the money was on regs that would by and large neuter the industry.
When the draft rules were released in early June 2016 — all 1,400 pages of them — that concern became a certainty.
The new regulations, despite all the verbiage, can be summarized into four big changes for short-term lenders nationwide: