InfoBytes Blog
NCUA approves additional payday loan alternative
On September 19, the NCUA announced the approval of a final rule creating a new payday alternative loan product (PAL II). As previously covered by InfoBytes, in June 2018, NCUA proposed the PAL II as an additional offering to the current payday alternative loan product (PAL I), which has been available since 2010. PAL II includes most features of PAL I except that it (i) eliminates a loan minimum and sets the maximum at $2,000; (ii) requires a minimum loan term of one month and a maximum of 12 months; and (iii) does not contain a requirement for the minimum length of a membership. Moreover, federal credit unions are restricted to offering only one type of PAL loan to a member at any given time. All prior requirements of PAL I loans, such as the prohibition against rollovers, the limit on the number of loans a single borrower can take in a given period, and full amortization, remain in effect. The final rule will be effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.