Consumer lending

Installment lenders are concerned that efforts by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to curb the most abusive and predatory practices associated with payday loans will wreak havoc on their business.

Fannie and Freddie regulator's first report on NPL sales shows more borrowers avoid foreclosures when their loans are sold to investors.

Some critics of the bureau think there is a renewed chance to change the bureau's structure. They point to the presidential election and recent setbacks to CFPB Director Richard Cordray, including a watchdog's report on employee discrimination and a pending legal challenge to its constitutionality, as laying the groundwork for a change.

Banks, credit card companies and other financial firms are strategizing ways to stave off higher legal bills they expect from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal to limit the use of arbitration clauses, which is likely to open the floodgates to class action lawsuits.

Debt collection complaints fell in May, and the average of complaints from March through May also dropped, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s latest monthly complaint report.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a class-action lawsuit against Encore Capital Group Inc. to proceed, declining to hear the debt-buying giant's claim that such companies should be protected from state laws barring money-lending at unreasonably high interest rates.

WASHINGTON — Community banks and credit unions would be forced to stop making short-term, small dollar loans if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's payday lending proposal is adopted, two trade groups said Monday.

The court's decision to return Madden v. Midland Funding to a lower court leaves unresolved a number of important questions for marketplace lenders and other parts of the consumer-finance industry.

In a setback for the U.S. consumer finance industry, the Supreme Court said Monday that it will not review a lower court's decision that bolstered the ability of states to enforce bans on high-cost lending.

A libel lawsuit against a Pennsylvania newspaper and three reporters will continue following a ruling by the Pennsylvania Superior Court. A judge brought the suit following a fake courtroom debt collections case.