The CRL,
backed by credit unions and banks who have a financial motive
for limiting access to payday lending, favors legislation that
would cap interest rates on short term loans at 36 percent.
In the report, CRL takes great pains to immunize its
benefactors - banks and credit unions who have a financial
motive for limiting access to payday lending - from charges of
racism for abandoning the same areas now served by neighborhood
financial services companies.
The CRL report - The Role of Race and Ethnicity in the
Location of Payday Lenders in California - claims to a quantitative study of the factors that influence both
payday lender and bank branch location.
CRL claims that race and ethnicity account for over half of the variation in payday lender
location explained by neighborhood factors, but only one percent
of the variation in bank branches.
