Payday Loans – An Exploration
Posted in Loans on July 4th, 2009 by – Be the first to commentWhat are they? These are a form of short term loan, a source of financing your urgent and immediate expenses, helping you with small amount of money until you get paid again. As the name signifies, these are the loans sanctioned and supposed to be paid back when you receive your next paycheck. They usually have a high interest rate associated with them as compared to other types of loans.
Most of these payday loans are for an average around 2 weeks. The borrower might find the process very expensive owing to the extravagant interest rates. To add to it, if on the date of returning the loan the borrower defaults due to not having enough cash in the account, the check issued would bounce. Not only is the borrowers reputation dented severely, it also may result in extra fees and higher interest rates which could ultimately lead to a debt cycle which could be like a vicious circle hard to break out of.
A lot of people blame these payday loans for further worsening the situation and financial problems of borrowers with major issues related to money as statistics indicate only one percent of these loans go to people borrowing once every year and also clear their debt in time and not incurring any additional costs due to late or non payment of cash. They feel the interest rates are unjustifiably large as compared to those charged on credit cards majorly used by middle and upper class people. To add to it the people from lower level are unaware of the traps and ignorant of the debt cycles they might land up into. As such they keep borrowing and continue to pay astronomically huge interest rates to get themselves out of the cycle.
But people still feel payday loans are the only option for people who can not make use of other alternatives like loans from friends, acquaintances, family and the credit cards primarily availed by middle and upper income group. While some also feels that like the home mortgages, their short term and lower principal counterpart i.e. the payday loans, justify the high rates of interest. They justify it by saying that not even the processing cost would be recovered leave the profit, if interest rates would be kept at a very low level. Contrary to them critics feel that there is not much processing cost associated with payday loans and thus say that the argument is flawed. There are other options like small loans from consumers, borrowing money from friends and family, advance on credit cards and different credit unions. There are many proponents and critics of payday loans and as of today people from lower and middle income groups continue to borrow such loans as and when they don’t find any alternatives.