Payday loans - or places to quickly borrow cash, are easy to find in Nevada. They promise hundreds to thousands of dollars with no hassle, but of course there are strings attached.
Now, our State Treasurer wants new regulations to protect borrowers. Chief of Staff, Grant Hewitt;  "The payday loans have been referred to as a loan of last resort. They are loaning to somebody who probably can't make that payment anyway, so they're inadvertently getting folks into a cycle that they can't get out of." Many end up owing 400% interest on a $200 loan. The services provided by these businesses are entirely legal, but tend to be found in low income neighborhoods.
Nancy Brown with Opportunity Alliance Nevada doesn’t think it’s a coincidence; "They are setting up shop, this one right here is right next to the welfare department. Usually people on welfare have financial stress, so..."
So, the State Treasurer's office and several advocacy groups are asking our law makers to make some changes during next year's legislature. "We’d like to cap interest rates, create a cooling off period so you can't get back to back to back to back loans. We're looking for any options" says Hewitt.
And there are safer options available for borrowers, says Brown.  "They're called community development financial institutions, “she explains. “ They're regulated but they actually provide lending resources to people who are maybe not bankable at this time"
Opportunity Alliance Nevada, a non-profit that works to protect consumer's financial rights. The group supports the regulations the treasurer's office would like to put in place.
 "One of the things we're looking at is a state wide data base of all payday loans, cuz what we find is that people go to one pay day loan shop and then they go to another one right across the street. Those businesses don't know that that person already has a pay day loan," says Hewitt.
Financial analysts say the payday loan industry rakes in $50 billion a year.
The Nevada State Treasurer’s office and several non-profits in northern Nevada do offer resources for debt management.
Opportunity Alliance Nevada http://www.opportunityalliancenv.org/about-us/
Washoe Legal Services http://www.washoelegalservices.org/
Nevada Legal Services  http://nlslaw.net/
Nevada State Treasurer, Debt Management http://www.nevadatreasurer.gov/Finances/Debt/Home/
