Interesting Reads

February’s Scientific American had an article titled Why Don’t People Manage Debt Better. This is a must read for Marketing folks. Mind you, this is not a compliance article but a discussion on how people do not effectively manage debt. The article provides a summary of experiments the researchers ran on the interpretation of advertisements and which ads would invoke the best response for refinancing high-rate debt. The full results of the experiments can be found here. It is an interesting read, and the using the findings may help bring more loans into the credit union.

Mother Jones’ April edition includes an article titled Car Trouble – A subprime boom, insane interest rates, predatory lending, a private-equity frenzy, by Gary Rivlin. It discusses how subprime car lenders are taking advantage of the credit challenged. In 2014, the market for subprime auto loans reached $98 billion. The article includes methods that the subprime dealers use to take advantage of the subprime borrowers. It is not as happy of an article as the Scientific American, but it is another interesting read. I don’t find the article on-line (without having to sign-up or download something), but if you want to read it, let me know and I will forward a copy to you.

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