As Bidenomics continues to wreak havoc on Americans' ability to pay bills on time, credit card balances are going up and people who were already living closer to the edge are being forced to look at alternatives they wouldn't consider in more prosperous times, such as installment/payday lenders, in order to pay bills on time and avoid overdrafts.

While I'm not personally a fan of payday lending, I understand that there are times people might see them as the only option, and I believe in people being free to make contracts and agreements for themselves. I'm also not a fan of businesspeople creating seemingly customer-focused nonprofit advocacy groups to push for legislation to put their competitors out of business, which is what looks to be happening in South Carolina right now. S-910, a bill that would place a number of restrictions (some duplicative of federal regulations) on payday lenders, is being pushed by groups headed by people who stand to financially benefit from those restrictions on payday lenders.

These groups have also received hundreds of millions of dollars in various types of taxpayer assistance since 1996, according to a January 31 article in Palmetto State News:

Two groups pushing for restrictions on installment lenders in South Carolina are part of a “network of businesses and advocacy groups—which has cumulatively received more than $380 million in federal grants, loans, and other taxpayer assistance since 1996" and "has spent millions lobbying the federal government on measures including additional regulations on those lenders,” reported the Washington Free Beacon.

The two groups — Self-Help Credit Union and Center for Responsible Lending — are both run by North Carolinian Martin Eakes and are part of the South Carolina Fair Lending Alliance that is lobbying for a bill this year to restrict the marketing efforts of installment lenders in South Carolina.  

One legislator who works in the payday lending industry wrote an op-ed in the Post and Courier calling out a few duplicative provisions: 

S.910 contains many unnecessary if not ill-informed provisions. For example, it would bar installment lenders from using text messaging to market to consumers. There’s one problem: Installment lenders are already barred from using text messages under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Similarly, the bill requires installment lending companies like mine, which are not banks or credit unions, to undertake analysis of prospective borrowers’ ability to repay a loan before making the loan. But all licensed installment lenders in the state already do this through an underwriting process that is more rigorous than the bill’s requirements, and usually includes face-to-face meetings between the borrower and installment lender.

Eakes, who runs both Self-Help Credit Union (a direct competitor to the payday lending industry) and the Center for Responsible Lending, has been working in the background for more than a decade on destroying competition through regulation and legislation. Considering that opponents of the payday lending industry cite a lack of transparency about terms and conditions as one of their main problems with those lenders' marketing and business practices, that's pretty ironic.

Way back in 2015, the Washington Free Beacon detailed Eakes' machinations to that point:

Eakes is one of at least nine individuals who have passed through a revolving door between the Self-Help network and positions at federal agencies that regulate financial firms with which his credit union competes.

Eakes himself has simultaneously served as the chief executive of the credit union and an affiliated interest group, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), and an influential advisory post at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has recently played a major role in combating the payday lending industry.

The FDIC’s efforts are part of a larger initiative involving the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau called Operation Choke Point.

. . .

According to the payday lending industry, Operation Choke Point regulators have pressured banks to discontinue services to payday lenders that operate entirely within the law.

Eakes sat on the FDIC’s Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion, and in that role made recommendations to FDIC leaders on regulations that would "crack down" on the payday lending industry. One proposal was a pilot project "to expand the availability of reasonably-priced small-dollar loans," such as those offered at SHCU. 

When the FDIC floated the pilot program, Eakes said it could be used as a means to eliminate the competition.

Eakes "suggested that the most valuable outcome of the pilot project might be to convince policymakers that there is an alternative to payday loans, thereby making it more palatable to prohibit payday loans," according to minutes of the meeting.

A 2015 Politico story documented collaboration between Eakes' CRL and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, Sen. Elizabeth Warren's chosen agency for remodeling the financial industry into a progressive's dream:

For more than a year before CFPB put out its proposed rule to crack down on payday lenders, the Center for Responsible Lending and other advocacy groups, such as the National Consumer Law Center, worked with the agency to help craft the proposal, according to emails and documents released by CFPB to comply with a recent Freedom of Information Act request filed by the payday lending industry trade group Community Financial Services Association.

More recently he's been behind state-level bills in Illinois and New Mexico, and last year in South Carolina. And now he has an employee running for office in South Carolina:

"Eakes’ Self-Help Credit Union has been front and center of the push to regulate installment lenders in South Carolina this year, with Kerri Smith, Self-Help’s regional president for South Carolina, featured in news stories announcing the filing of S-910 on Jan. 9. Smith also is running as a Republican in the primary election for the South Carolina 28th House District against incumbent state Rep. Ashley Trantham (R-Greenville). Smith has touted "the support of her employer, Self-Help Credit Union."

We can all agree that there should be complete transparency and truth in all financial transactions - and for me, that includes the marketing and no bait-and-switch at the last minute. It also includes transparency about who's pushing what laws and who's advising the regulators. And, we shouldn't allow people whose own profit motive is obviously controlling their recommendations at the expense of products millions of consumers rely on to be calling the shots.