InfoBytes Blog
DFPI issues annual reports on 2021 mortgage, payday loan trends
Recently, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) issued two reports: Annual Report of Activity Under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act and the Annual Report Of Payday Lending Activity Under The California Deferred Deposit Transaction Law. The DFPI’s first report noted decreases in the number and cumulative amounts of loan originations and payday loans in 2021 compared to 2020. Additionally, it found that the number of loans originated by licensees decreased from 1,130,230 in 2020 to 1,018,286 in 2021. The report also found that the number of brokered loans increased from 17,715 in 2020 to 18,508 in 2021. In addition, the report found that licensees’ complaints regarding non-traditional mortgage loans increased from 13,421 in 2020 to 17,404 in 2021.
In its second report, the DFPI noted that the Covid-19 pandemic “likely played a role” in the decrease in payday lending in the state. The number of individuals taking out payday loans also fell from 1.128 million in 2020 to 790,143 in 2021. Other highlights of the reports include, among other things, that: (i) the number of payday loan customers referred by lead generators rose from 98,555 in 2020 to 109,486 in 2021; (ii) approximately 20 percent of licensees made payday loans over the Internet during 2021, with online payday loans accounting for about 45.2 percent (2,047,889) of all payday loans; and (iii) approximately 416,000 payday loan customers, or about 53 percent of the total, obtained their loans online.