Countrywide

Issa Issues Broad Countrywide VIP Loan Subpoena

Susan Crabtree | February 16, 2011, 7:04PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, expanded a prior investigation into the Countrywide Financial Corporation's infamous VIP loan program by issuing a wide-ranging subpoena aimed at exposing more information about the mortgage giant's efforts to win friends and influence people at the highest levels of government.

Issa's subpoena, announced Wednesday night, was sent to Bank of America, which purchased Countrywide just before the height of the economic crisis. The subpoena asks for all documents and requests related to Countrywide's VIP program, which implicated Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the then-chairman of the Banking Committee.

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Topics: Chris Dodd, Countrywide, Darrell Issa, Edolphus Towns, House Oversight, House Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives , Kent Conrad, Senate Banking Committee, Senators

W. Allan Jones

Fighting Criticism, Pay-Day CEO Turns To Blogging

Derek Hawkins | April 5, 2010, 4:12PM

To push back against criticism of the pay-day lending industry, W. Allan Jones, the high-living pay-day lender entrepreneur we've told you about, has turned to blogging. In his only post so far, the Tennessee multimillionaire and founder of the pay-day lending giant Check Into Cash, Inc., defended the industry's sky-high annualized interest rates.

As we've reported, Jones co-founded the Community Financial Services Association (CFSA), an industry trade group that played a key role in convincing Congress to weaken provisions in the financial regulatory reform bill intended to crack down on the industry's predatory lending practices.

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Topics: Pay-Day Lenders, Senate Banking Committee, W. Allan Jones

Pay-Day Lenders

After Lobbying By Pay-Day Lenders, Dodd Bill Is Weakened

Zachary Roth | March 16, 2010, 12:33PM

As we've reported, the pay-day lending industry -- one of the most predatory players corners in the modern financial system -- has recently been hard at work lobbying to water down provisions in the financial regulatory reform bill currently in the Senate. (We also told you about the industry's key lobbyist, who used to be the sub-prime industry's man in Washington.)

Now Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has unveiled the reform proposal that will create the basis for the Senate bill. And it looks like the industry's lobbying, up to a point, has paid off -- although it's still unhappy that it's being seriously regulated at all.

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Topics: Chris Dodd, Financial Crisis, Financial Regulation, Lobbyists, Pay-Day Lenders, Senate Banking Committee, Wall Street

Wright Andrews

Master Of Disaster: The Go-To Washington Lobbyist For Financial Predators

Zachary Roth | March 11, 2010, 3:45PM

The same Washington lobbyist who led the sub-prime mortgage industry's successful bid to shoot down government efforts to curtail risky lending is now helping pay-day lenders to water down the financial-regulatory reform bill currently before Congress.

Wright Andrews has developed a niche representing some of the least sympathetic and most predatory players in the financial industry. A veteran lawyer-lobbyist and one-time aide to Democratic senator Sam Nunn, Andrews has lobbied extensively of late for a trade association for pay-day lenders -- which offer short-term, high-interest loans to the working poor, often triggering a cycle of debt for their customers. During the last decade, Andrews ran three different trade groups for the sub-prime mortgage industry, whose home loans defaulted in massive numbers to set off the financial crisis.

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Topics: Ameriquest, Barney Frank, Bob Corker, Campaign Contributions, Campaign Finance, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Financial Crisis, Gregory Meeks, Lisa Andrews, Lobbyists, Pay-Day Lenders, Senate Banking Committee, W. Allan Jones, Wright Andrews

W. Allan Jones

High-Living Pay-Day Lender CEO Tied To Bid To Weaken Financial Reform

Zachary Roth | March 10, 2010, 3:55PM

In the wake of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, a high-living, politically connected Tennessee businessman who made a fortune by lending money to the poor at sky-high interest rates has ties to a successful effort to water down financial regulatory reform.

Meet W. Allan Jones, who in 1993 founded Check Into Cash, a pay-day lending chain that says it now has 1,100 stores in 30 states. The company offers short-term loans designed to tide customers over until their next paycheck. But the interest rates can be as much as 400 percent on an annualized basis, meaning that they lead many borrowers to end up digging themselves deeper into debt.

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Topics: Bob Corker, Financial Crisis, Pay-Day Lenders, Senate Banking Committee, W. Allan Jones