It’s been more than five years since Lynette Hill bought a good winter coat. So when she decided to get a loan for that new coat (“and maybe buy some shoes and pay off some bills”), Hill turned to Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit lender new to Illinois hoping to make inroads with immigrant and working-class communities of color across the state.
Studies show those groups tend to borrow from high-interest lenders like payday and title lenders, which offer instant cash in exchange for a few documents and a signature. But those loans charge anywhere from 36% to 404% in annual interest in Illinois.
Capital Good Fund, on the other hand, charges between 7% and 22% annual interest on loans of $300 to $20,000.
Read the full story here.
