Pay Day Loans: Exploring Industry Practices, Benefits and Harms, and Alternatives

In 1995, Washington State provided an exemption to the usury laws allowing short-term lenders, aka “Pay Day Lenders,” to charge up to 391% APR for two-week loans. Since that time, pay day lenders, whose customers are primarily those without economic alternatives, have multiplied exponentially within our state. This workshop will explore the pay day loan industry, its practices, the harms and benefits to those who use it, Washington’s laws regulating this industry, how other states and the federal government have addressed this issue, and alternatives to providing short-term credit to those who need it – usually those with low paying jobs and few financial resources. Saturday, 1:30 p.m. – 3 p.m., Room C

Hon. Donald J Horowitz (ret.), ATJ Board Technology Committee (moderator)

Salvador Mungia, Washington State Bar Association President-Elect (moderator);

Bruce Neas, Columbia Legal Services

Aiko Shaffer, Washington State Budget & Policy Center and Access to Justice Board member