“Predatory lending”. The term seems to be coming back into fashion thanks to payday loan debates being waged in some states like Wisconsin where the governor wants to expand the abilities of small-loan institutions similar to CASH 1 to do business. At issue in this particular case are the simple loosening of insurance laws to allow money-lending organizations to sell insurance annuities and similar commodities.

In layman’s terms, this means check-cashing and loan institutions in Wisconsin will be allowed to sell certain kinds of insurance to people who would not otherwise qualify for such programs.

So why all the uproar?

As some claim, this is just another way for “predatory lenders” to bring poor and lower income people into a debt trap they cannot get out of. We’re not sure what they mean by this, especially since many of these same people decrying “predatory lenders” were also in favor of mandating the purchase of health insurance.

What exactly is “predatory” about providing services to people who cannot get them elsewhere or otherwise cannot afford them?

We’ve touched on this subject before, but it’s always good to be reminded of the concept of responsible borrowing and the fact CASH 1 endorses the practice. We can’t speak for other money-lending organizations, though we suspect the same is similar for them.

We encourage responsible borrowing first and foremost because we care about our customers. We know how much that might sound manipulative and insincere, but we assure you, we do mean it. Why? Because we don’t want you to get into financial trouble. We want to be here when you need some extra cash to get through a tough time, and hopefully it will be the only difficult financial times you experience. But if not, then we want to be available for you to utilize our services again in the future, and if you’re not exercising good borrowing habits, that can’t happen.

That brings us to our second point. Responsible borrowing is a good business practice. This is why we don’t really understand the term “predatory lending”. Even if it were legal, we would never try to compel or trick you into borrowing money if you couldn’t afford to pay it back. That wouldn’t just hurt you, it would hurt us; hurt our reputation as a responsible lender, hurt our relationship with our customers... nothing good comes from it. We don’t seek out people in difficult circumstances and try to get them to get into a situation they would be unable to recover from. We offer a service that is otherwise unavailable to people who need to get a loan online, and we offer the terms of that service up front. No customer will ever take out easy cash loans from CASH 1 without knowing absolutely all that is required for paying that loan back.

CASH 1 wants you to borrow responsibly, and we are committed to responsible lending, so if you ever find yourself in financial difficulty, you’ll know you can count on us.