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| Candice Byrd at her home in Bloomington, Ill., on Wednesday. Ms. Byrd took out a $500 payday loan in 2011 that mushroomed into a cycle of loans. Seth Lowe for The New York Times |
The payday loan industry, which is vilified for charging exorbitant interest rates on short-term loans that many Americans depend on, could soon be gutted by a set of rules that federal regulators plan to unveil on Thursday.
People who borrow money against their paychecks are generally supposed to pay it back within two weeks, with substantial fees piled on: A customer who borrows $500 would typically owe around $575, at an annual percentage rate of 391 percent. But most borrowers routinely roll the loan over into a new one, becoming less likely to ever emerge from the debt.
