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As loan growth slows, banks and other lenders have been tinkering with loan terms in an effort to gain more consumers, the Wall Street Journal reported. They are originating a greater share of loans with repayment periods of more than five years and, in some cases, extending loans to consumers who are stretching further to afford their purchases. Banks such as TD Bank, Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. and BB&T Corp., meanwhile, have said they are increasing their loans to riskier applicants. The latest underwriting efforts show that lenders, faced with conflicting signals about the health of the U.S. consumer, are engaged in a delicate balancing act to boost lending and profit without taking on overly risky customers. Though unemployment has reached an 18-year low and wages are creeping higher, some households are sliding deeper into debt and falling behind on their credit cards and other debt payments. Many auto lenders, including banks, non-banks and the finance arms of car manufacturers, have been offering more loans with longer terms. In the first quarter, the average loan term for a new car exceeded 69 months, the second consecutive quarter it had ever been above that level, according to credit-reporting firm Experian. Also in the first quarter, new car loans originated with repayment periods of between 73 and 84 months represented more than a third of total new car loans, up from 7 percent of loans in late 2009.

Platinum-selling rapper Lil' Kim filed for chapter 13 protection in New Jersey last month after her bank foreclosed on her gated mansion in Alpine, N.J., and the IRS said that she owes $1.47 million in back taxes, the New York Daily News reported. Court documents listed more than $4 million in secured and unsecured debts. The performer filed her petition May 8, just three days before her 6,026-square-foot property was scheduled to go on the auction block. A new listing on Auction.com that remained active Friday said the date for public bidding was rescheduled to June 28. Her filings in the case say she’s $664,474 behind on payments for the $2.3 million house and claim her gross income has dropped substantially in the last of couple years — from $823,659 in 2016 to $398,000 last year.

The latest survey of Consumers’ Use of Mobile Financial Services of the Federal Reserve Board found that 28 percent of respondents with a smartphone made payments through their mobile phones, according to a Wall Street Journal commentary. When Amy Finkelstein, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looked at the data for E-ZPasses on the Mass Pike, she found that people who use the pass are less aware of how much they pay for the toll than are those who use cash. This concerned a research team at the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center and prompted it to take a closer look at mobile-phone payments. Some of the findings were expected by the team: Ease of payments attracts those who are comfortable with technology and have a busy life. Users of mobile payments are most likely to work full time, have higher education and be male. They are also more active financially. However, Millennials who make mobile payments are much more likely to use credit cards in expensive ways, such as paying only the minimum due or incurring fees. They are also much more likely to overdraw their bank accounts (33 percent of mobile-payment users do it vs. 19 percent of nonusers) and to make withdrawals from their retirement accounts, if they have them. Some 37 percent of mobile-payment users take money from their retirement account vs. 9 percent of nonusers. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

*The views expressed in this commentary are from the author/publication cited, are meant for informative purposes only, and are not an official position of ABI.

Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, dismissed the agency’s 25-member advisory board yesterday, days after some of its members criticized his leadership of the watchdog agency, the Washington Post reported. The CFPB said that it will revamp the Consumer Advisory Board (CAB) in the fall with all new members. The panel has traditionally played an influential role in advising the CFPB’s leadership on new regulations and policies. But some members, who include prominent consumer advocates, academics and industry executives, began to complain that Mulvaney was ignoring them and making unwise decisions about the agency’s future. On Monday, 11 CAB members held a news conference and criticized Mulvaney for, among other things, canceling legally required meetings with the group. Yesterday, group members were notified that they were being replaced — and that they could not reapply for spots on the new board.

After granting student borrowers a temporary victory last month against the Department of Education, a federal judge this week will consider larger questions about whether all Corinthian Colleges students misled by their former institution should get full relief of their student loan debt, Inside Higher Ed reported. A handful of former Corinthian borrowers, represented by the Project on Predatory Lending at Harvard University, are suing the department over a plan, announced in December, to award partial relief of student loan debt to defrauded borrowers. Federal Magistrate Sallie Kim ruled last month that the system violated the Privacy Act by improperly using average earning data from Social Security records, and issued an injunction against collecting on those loan debts. What remains at question, though, is whether a de facto policy previously existed at the department that dictates any misled borrowers who attended Corinthian institutions should get full debt relief. If such a policy did exist, it could aid the arguments of borrowers seeking full debt relief. Kim will hold a hearing today to try to determine whether a so-called Corinthian rule was in place at the department, as well as other questions involving loan forgiveness for defrauded students.