We’ve been pushing for stronger protections on overdraft protection loans for years, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a federal bank regulator, recently released a proposed guidance that would eliminate some of the worst features of overdraft programs-such as ordering transactions to maximize fee income.  However, the proposed rule has a glaring flaw—it puts  bank-based payday loans, also known as deposit advance loans, in the same category as overdraft loans. Bank payday loans and overdraft loans are entirely different beasts—they’re structured differently, used for different purposes, and have different risks. The two products need regulations tailored to their unique characteristics. We recently submitted our comments on these rules; you can send regulators your thoughts until August 8, 2011.

A federal judge ruled that Wells Fargo engaged in deceptive practices in its overdraft loan program and ordered that the bank pay more than $200 million in restitution to customers. Wells Fargo manipulated the order in which it processed transactions in order to maximize the number of overdraft fees charged, processing the largest transactions first. This zeroes out a customer’s balance faster and charges overdraft fees for each smaller transaction that goes into the negative.

More women will declare bankruptcy than get college degrees this year. Over one quarter of U.S. households are unbanked or underbanked, and 85 percent of these consumers are people of color. For every dollar that white Americans have, Latinos have 12 cents and African-Americans have 10 cents.

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has refused requests of Woodstock Institute and colleagues for a meeting to discuss the deleterious effects of its consumer lending and mortgage loan modification practices on our communities, but I finally got a chance to speak to him directly at the Chase shareholder meeting in New York on May 18.

Financial reform is at a critical juncture in Washington. The House has already passed a bill to create a strong and independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) to put consumers’ interests over those of Wall Street and crack down on the risky lending that spurred the financial crisis. However, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) continues to compromise the agency’s independence in the interest of bipartisan support.