AFSA Members Supporting Consumers for More than a Century
The American Financial Services Association (AFSA), couldn’t help but notice today’s inter-agency notice, in which the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, National Credit Union Administration, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau encouraged financial institutions to expand their consumer lending.
The group, according to their release, “recognizes that responsible small-dollar loans can play an important role in meeting customers’ credit needs because of temporary cash-flow imbalances, unexpected expenses, or income disruptions during periods of economic stress or disaster recoveries. Such loans can be offered through a variety of structures including open-end lines of credit, closed-end installment loans, or appropriately structured single payment loans.”
AFSA might not have said it better, but we’ve been saying it – and doing it – for a lot longer than some of these government entities have existed. For more than a century, AFSA member companies have worked with their customers to provide the traditional installment loans and auto financing they needed. Our members have been serving communities and the multi-generational families that live there – sometimes as the only local brick and mortar lender in town – for decades.
AFSA members’ customers represent more than $1 trillion in economic growth for our economy. Some of it is discretionary spending via credit cards, which will be increasingly important to get America’s overall economy moving in the coming months (think about how our local, small businesses depend on that spending day to day). There will be opportunities to help jumpstart our automotive industry, or perhaps to invest in new household appliances, such as refrigerators or freezers or laundry machines, all of which will enhance customers’ lives and energize our economic growth. There will also be emergency needs due to employment disruption, for medical care or travel emergencies.
Millions of American consumers work with installment lenders and auto-financiers to meet specific needs or because other institutions won’t or can’t provide the small-dollar installment loan they need. We’re glad that the Fed, OCC, FDIC, and CFPB saw fit to encourage such loans in today’s economic environment.
Through the decades AFSA member companies have been there for consumers in their times of need, to meet all their needs. And we’re ready to help consumers right now.
March 27th, 2020 by Dan Bucherer
