Small-dollar lending

Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney backed a congressional effort to overturn the agency's short-term lending rule, said he planned to install more political appointees and acknowledged a possible prank played on him.

Partnerships with financial technology companies could be effective in helping banks meet small-dollar credit demand, but those partnerships face a legal cloud. Thankfully Congress is considering adding needed clarity.

The Senate confirmed Joseph Otting, a former business partner of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Rather than pull up stakes and leave two low-income Mississippi towns at the mercy of payday lenders, Regions Bank donated the branches to a local credit union and kicked in another $500,000 for operating costs.

Fifth Third, U.S. Bancorp and others aim to design a short-term credit product that would satisfy their various regulators, but exactly how and how quickly they should go about it is murky at this point.

The tech giant won praise from consumer groups for its decision to ban ads for high-cost consumer loans. But the policy contains a big loophole, and advertisers have found multiple ways to exploit it.

For all the anticipation that preceded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's final small-dollar lending rule, a picture of how the rule will affect banks and credit unions is still quite hazy.

With the environment in Washington favoring deregulation, banks are pushing regulators to let them back into the payday lending game. They should know better.

LendUp is seeking to differentiate itself from competitors by making fast loan decisions and designing its customer experience around the mobile phone.

A Nebraska banking veteran put up $1 million of her own money to create a microlending program that doesn't require business owners to provide traditional collateral.