The beginning of the end for payday lending?
Payday Lending ... no more
In a recent article published by the Huffington Post, I argued that the days of abusive payday lending might be numbered, now that new online services like BillFloat are appearing at a fraction of the cost.
I also lamented that some prepaid card suppliers were cozying up a bit too much to the payday lenders…
Guess what: this week, prepaid card providers NetSpend and AccountNow are finding themselves sans the iAdvance short-term lines of credit with 3 digit yearly APRs that they were tackling to some of their cards.
The Office of Thrift Supervision asked MetaBank, the originator of the iAdvance product to stop offering it.
It is difficult to rejoice when your industry neighbors and competitors are getting hit, because the whole industry gets blemished.
As always, market players should always improve by taking the initiative to create better and cheaper products rather than by shedding existing bad products only when forced to.
