Banking and Finance Law Commons^™

The Damage Of Debt, Katherine Porter

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

After The Great Recession: Regulating Financial Services For Low- And Middle-Income Communities, Ronald J. Mann

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Payday Loans: Misguided?, Paige Marta Skiba

Washington and Lee Law Review

Since payday lenders came on the scene in 1990s, regulation of their “predatory” practices has been swift and often severe. Fourteen states now ban payday loans outright. From an economist’s perspective, high-interest, short-term, small loans need not be a bad thing. Payday credit can help borrowers “smooth” consumption, unequivocally improving welfare as consumers borrow from future good times to help cover current shortfalls. These benefits of credit can accrue even at typical payday loan interest rates of 300%–600% APR. The question of whether payday credit actually assists borrowers in this way is an empirical one. In this Article, I review …

“Warning: Predatory Lender”—A Proposal For Candid Predatory Small Loan Ordinances, Christopher L. Peterson

Washington and Lee Law Review

Over a hundred different local governments around the country have adopted ordinances restricting small, high-cost loans. This trend reflects the solid majority of the American public that opposes the legality of triple-digit interest rate loans and the long historical tradition of treating payday and car-title lending as a serious civil offense or even a crime. Nevertheless, perhaps owing to limits on municipal power, local payday lending law has generated relatively little scholarship or commentary. This paper describes the existing local law governing small, high-cost consumer loans and proposes a more emphatic ordinance that better reflects the policy judgment of many …

Congress Protected The Troops: Can The New Cfpb Protect Civilians From Payday Lending?, Creola Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

In 2007, Congress enacted a law, commonly referred to as the Military Lending Act (MLA), which placed a 36% interest rate cap on several consumer loans, including payday loans, and prohibits lenders from engaging in several practices considered predatory. However, the MLA grants these protections only to active-duty military members and their dependent family members. In the wake of the mortgage foreclosure crisis, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd–Frank Act), which creates a new federal agency, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB), to focus on …

Payday Loan Prohibitions: Protecting Financially Challenged Consumers Or Pushing Them Over The Edge?, William M. Webster, Iv

Washington and Lee Law Review

As recovery from the economic downturn continues, American consumers face an unabated need for short-term, small-dollar credit. To cope with this need, millions choose to take out payday loans. Often the subject of controversy and criticism, these loans have become a mainstream credit option, considered by consumers alongside so-called “traditional” credit products offered by banks and credit unions. This article examines the issues surrounding payday loans, including consumer credit needs, critical options for fulfilling those needs and consumer rationale, from the perspective of Advance America, Cash Advance Centers, Inc., the country’s largest non-bank provider of cash advance services. When faced …

The Economics And Regulation Of Bank Overdraft Protection, Todd J. Zywicki

Washington and Lee Law Review

Consumer use of bank overdraft protection has risen rapidly over the past decade, leading to increased scrutiny and the imposition of new regulations. Public and political debate regarding overdraft protection has highlighted anecdotal stories about irresponsible college students who overdraw their accounts to buy a cup of coffee, thereby triggering substantial overdraft fees. But there has been little systematic examination of the safety and soundness or consumer protection issues implicated by the increased use of overdraft protection. Available evidence indicates that those who rely on overdraft protection tend to have low credit ratings and use overdraft protection to maintain short-term …

The Failed Nyse Euronext-Deutsche Borse Group Merger: Foreshadowing Future Consolidation Of The Global Stock Exchange Market, Christina D. Cress

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Living Wills: Can A Flexible Approach To Rulemaking Address Key Concerns Surrounding Dodd-Frank's Resolution Plans, Clay R. Costner

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Section 1044 Of Dodd-Frank: When Will State Laws Be Preempted Under The Occ's Revised Regulations, Danyeale I. Hensley

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Past, Present And Future Threats To Federal Safety Net Benefits In Bank Accounts, Margot F. Saunders, Johnson M. Tyler

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

International Regulatory Arbitrage Resulting From Dodd-Frank Derivatives Regulation, Benjamin M. Weadon

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

A Review Of "The New Financial Deal" By David Skeel, Louis Massard

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

The Missing Lending Link: Why A Federal Loan Guarantee Program Is Critical To The Continued Growth Of The Solar Power Industry, Daniel K. Tracey

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Structured Notes Fiasco In The Courts: A Study Of Relevant Judgments In Taiwan Between 2009 And 2010, Christopher Chao-Hung Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The purpose of this article is to analyse relevant judicial decisions in Taiwan regarding structured notes sold to retail investors. Regarding pre-sale disputes, one issue was that investors failed to read contractual documents properly before signing contracts, so there was a question whether they could later claim a bank’s violation of its duty to explain. This article favours the view that an investor’s signature may exempt a bank’s duty, provided that investors are made aware of relevant warnings. In addition, for suitability assessment, relevant judgments show that customers were too easily classified as active investors based on a simple questionnaire. …

Federal Preemption And Consumer Financial Protection: Past And Future

Patricia A. McCoy

Starting in 1995 and throughout the subprime boom during the next decade, Congress failed to take action to curb predatory mortgage lending. Many states and cities filled the void by passing anti-predatory lending laws of their own. Lenders, worried about potential liability, quickly organized a full-scale attack on the state and local initiatives. Their most potent strategy lay in challenging the laws and ordinances under federal preemption rules for national banks and federal savings associations that precluded states from enforcing their anti-predatory lending laws.

The Dodd-Frank Act curtailed the preemption rules by establishing that state consumer financial laws can only …

Refund Fraud? Real-Time Solution!, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

When seven million dependents vanished from the tax rolls in 1986 the IRS recovered three billion dollars in revenue. A simple enforcement measure was applied. Taxpayers were required to list the social security number (SSN) for any dependent they claimed on their tax return. Costing next to nothing to implement, the benefits of this enforcement action continue to this day.

A similar enforcement measure could be employed against refund fraud. Even though the solution is not as simple as that adopted in 1986, it is similar. The effort is worth making. The revenue loss is much larger. As before, the …

Insider Trading, Informed Trading, And Market Making: Liquidity Of Securities Markets In The Zero-Sum Game, Stanislav Dolgopolov

William & Mary Business Law Review

This Article reexamines the nexus of relationships among informed transactions, information asymmetry, and liquidity of securities markets in the context of public policy debates about insider trading and its regulation.The Article analyzes this nexus, with the emphasis on recent empirical studies and developments in the securities industry, from a variety of perspectives and considers the validity of the alleged link between insider trading—as opposed to other forms of informed trading—and market liquidity as a justification for the existence of regulation.

Seeking True Financial Reform: Ending The Debt-Equity Distinction, Joseph B. Allen

William & Mary Business Law Review

This Note identifies the failure of Congress to address tax incentives for leverage as a principal cause of the recent financial crisis and a fundamental flaw of recent financial reform legislation. Specifically, the Internal Revenue Code provides substantially disparate tax treatment for debt and equity financing by allowing firms to deduct interest payments on indebtedness, but not providing an equivalent deduction for equity funding. This “debt-equity distinction” artificially reduces the cost of capital for debt financing relative to equity financing and encourages firms to over-employ leverage in their capital structure. This in turn increases financial distress costs and externalities to …

Hawala's Charm: What Banks Can Learn From Informal Funds Transfer Systems, Arya Hariharan

William & Mary Business Law Review

Hawala networks, or Informal Funds Transfer Systems (IFTS), are age-old means of conducting cross-border financial transactions. They thrive in regions where there is inadequate or nonexistent financial infrastructure due to poverty, daunting geography, or endemic conflict. Such regions are home to poor and underserved communities hungry for and in desperate need of financial services. IFTS provide access to these relatively ignored markets through the use of specific transactional mechanisms, payment modalities, and clearing and settlement options. With these innovative and flexible techniques, IFTS have successfully tapped into the exponentially growing global remittance market. Hawala networks are also used by NGOs …