99 – How to Fix the Payday Loan Industry

This past season, I have talked extensively with industry experts about payday loan solutions and alternatives. When I asked my guests from show 83, Brian Dijkema and Rhys McKendry, and my guest from show 85, Jonathon Bishop about what they think would improve the payday loan industry, they had so much to say that I wasn't able to air everything in the original podcasts. Today, I am sharing their previously un-aired thoughts.

Brian Dijkema and Rhy McKendry, experts from the Cardus think-tank, authored a study titled: "Banking on the Margins: Finding Ways to Build an Enabling Small Dollar Credit Market." They suggest that the solution to payday loans is for communities to pool their resources to provide financial products with the assistance of someone with financial expertise that can help them evaluate risk.

Jonathon Bishop, a Research and Parliamentary Affairs Analyst with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, suggests that the federal government repeal the usury law back to what it was before 2007. This would remove the exemption from the criminal code that allows payday loan companies to operate as they do and make payday loans as they are today illegal. Alternatively, Jonathon suggests that provinces could lower the maximum interest rate payday loans can charge incrementally over a period of a few years to allow the payday loan industry to adjust to these new rules.