Consumer lending

Ontario Systems announced Monday it has acquired Columbia Ultimate Business Systems in a deal joining two of the largest ARM industry vendors, with each holding distinct market-leading positions in adjacent verticals.

Consumer advocates are urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to strengthen its proposal to rein in payday lending, arguing it would still allow borrowers to be abused.

The Federal Trade Commission claims two Southern California law firms bilked people for $15 million in a single year in a mortgage scam.

TransUnion has been awarded the 2016 Javelin Identity Protection Leader in Resolution, the company announced.

Mississippi officials report that the state's ban on payday loan rollovers will remain intact after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enacts new rules on payday lending.

The City of York, Pa., has partnered with MuniServices LLC, a business of PRA Group Inc., to provide revenue discovery and recovery services.

Adli Dasuqi and his companies, American Handicapped Inc. and American Handicapped and Disadvantaged Workers Inc., agreed to settle FTC charges that they tricked consumers into buying household products on the pretext that the proceeds would help disabled people.

Outstanding consumer credit, a measure of nonmortgage debt, rose by a seasonally adjusted $13.4 billion in April from March, according to the Federal Reserve.

Walk down your average street in this country, and you'll find it easier to take out a loan than buy a coffee. With 22,000 payday lending locations in the U.S., Starbucks would have to grow three times in size to compete. Since the 1990s, annual loan volume has bloated to an estimated $27 billion. That's a lot of coffee.

Lenders are questioning the legal justification for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's putting a 36% annual percentage rate threshold in its payday proposal, claiming loans made at that rate are unprofitable. That figure has been the subject of intense debate in the past decade.