Payday lenders facing battle on a local level.
Fed up with their inability to get laws changed on the state level, advocates seeking to rein in so-called “payday lenders” operating in Rhode Island are taking the fight locally.Margaux Morisseau, co-chair of the Payday Lending Reform Coalition, has found some success in persuading municipal officials to enact ordinances that she says more stringently regulate payday lending. Payday lending involves a relatively small amount of money at a high interest rate that is supposed to be repaid by the borrower’s next paycheck.
Woonsocket, Cranston, and most recently, Providence have passed measures that cap interest rates at 33% and allow borrowers 60 days to repay their loans. Those ordinances were based on legislation crafted in Moorhead, Minn., which has led it to be dubbed nationally as the “Moorhead model.”
“We started floating this model to cities and towns who were frustrated that the state hasn’t done anything about this,” said Morisseau, who…
