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Payday Lending Bill Has First Hearing in Ohio House

Kyle Koehler
KAREN KASLER
/
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU

A bipartisan bill that would crack down on Ohio’s 650 payday lenders has received its first hearing in the House. 

A 2008 law toughened rules on payday lenders, but many of them have figured out a way to skirt that law. The Rev. Carl Ruby of the Central Christian Church in Springfield says legislation at the state level is even more important now given recent changes in Washington.
 
“I believe the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is going to be gutted and we don’t expect any help from them. Ohio has to fix this.”
 
Republican Kyle Koehler is sponsoring a bill to shut down loopholes lenders are currently using to charge up to 600 percent interest per year – a Pew Charitable Trusts study showed Ohio has the highest rates in the nation. His bill would cap that interest rate at 28 percent per year. 
 

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.