Adult borrowers are best served when they have the maximum number of financial options to choose from, not when legislators arbitrarily pick winners and losers.
Tim Miller, Center for Consumer Freedom

If the Center for Responsible Lending, a North Carolina-based banking organization connected to the discredited community organizing group ACORN, is successful in passing Issue 5, the measure will effectively ban 1,600 consumer lending businesses in Ohio and give banks incorporated outside Ohio a monopoly on short-term loans.

According to the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), supporters of Issue 5 sell the amendment as pro-consumer regulation, when it is actually a sweetheart deal for one special interest group.

The CCF says Issue 5 would restrict the number of loans Ohio-owned lenders can offer an individual in a year. In addition, the annual percentage rate on the loans will be capped at 28%. But Issue 5 includes an exemption for banks that incorporate in other states, allowing them to offer an unlimited number of loans that break the 28% cap.

If this special interest succeeds in banning their competition, Ohioans will be left with fewer financial options.

"Issue 5 lets only a small number of out-of-state interests provide short-term payday loans, which limits the options available to consumers in the state," said Tim Miller, spokesperson for the Center for Consumer Freedom. "Adult borrowers are best served when they have the maximum number of financial options to choose from, not when legislators arbitrarily pick winners and losers."