Current Payday Loan Business Model that Lenders Are Defending in …show more content…
If borrowers take out three sequential loans, the amount of the second loan must be at least one-third less than the first. The third loan amount must be at least two-thirds smaller than the first loan. This could discourage borrowers from becoming loyal customers of a particular payday loan store.
The Truth About the Profitability of the Payday Loan Industry
One criticism that is frequently levelled at payday lenders is that are making huge profits from their loans. The truth is that bad credit payday loans are not as profitable as many people believe.
• In August 2013, FinancialUproar.com examined the four largest publicly traded payday loan companies operating in the United States. The profit margins ranged from 4.91 percent to 13.4 percent and averaged 7.44 percent. For comparison, during the same period, Apple 's profit margin was 26.65 percent, Google 's net profit was 21.5 percent, Microsoft 's profit margin was 28.1 percent and Coca-Cola earned 18.9 …show more content…
When the profit margin for pawn shops and payday lenders was calculated, it averaged 7.6 percent, but after excluding pawn shops, the study found that payday lenders had a profit margin of approximately 3.6 percent. Commercial lenders, according to the report, averaged a profit margin of 13 percent.
• An article appearing in The Atlantic reported that the average profit before taxes for payday loan stores was less than 10 percent. The article stated that the entire consumer financial services industry had averaged a profit margin in excess of 30 percent before taxes for the previous five quarters.
• Two factors influencing the relatively low profits earned by payday lenders are the default rate and operating costs. The Pew Charitable Trusts, an organization that has been highly critical of the payday loan industry, found that payday lenders spend more than 66 percent of the fees they collect just keeping their stores open. The Atlantic article previously cited reported that loan defaults accounted for over 20 percent of the average payday loan store 's operating expensing, compared to 3 percent for small commercial