New Mexico is one of the major states in the USA that have been affected with the rapidly growing payday loan industry. Many have reported that despite some of the signage and brochure regulations for payday loans, the small industry of New Mexico payday loan still continue to persist and grow leaving some booming impacts to the lives of most of New Mexicans.



According to a certain report of the NMPIRG, a non-profit and non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting environmental preservation, consumer protection and good government in the State of New Mexico, two-thirds of the New Mexico payday loan and title lenders are in violation of the signage and brochure regulations. And, New Mexico is practically one of the major six states in the nation that has no regulation of these small loan businesses and most of the New Mexico payday loan companies are not even conforming to the State's simple disclosures.

It has been reported that in the year 1992, there were actually just 23 companies offering New Mexico payday loan or auto-title loans across the state. At the close of 2001, 349 of these lenders, which have been considered as “predatory”, have been spotted. And, in contrast, the total population of the New Mexico grew only 20 percent of during the same period. It is even reported that certain reports conducted on the New Mexico payday loan industry debunks industry arguments and found out that the New Mexico payday loans are not used as occasional and short term loans.

Specifically, one of the newest reports done to examine the growth of the New Mexico payday loan industry has noted that 45 payday as well as title loan company outlets around New Mexico have been established. The report actually looked at two certain regulations controlled and administered by the New Mexico Financial Institutions Division (FID) that create signs and brochures readily available to disclose rates as well as to define terms for the consumers.

For much information, only 33 percent of the stores, as surveyed, were in compliance with the signage and brochure regulations. And, according to some penalties that were prescribed by the New Mexico Small Loan Act, the noncompliance with the New Mexico payday loan regulations would result in a fine of $100 to $300. And based on an analysis of all the New Mexico payday companies that are licensed for these small and short term businesses in the year 2001, an amount of up to $70,000 in fines could be collected just for the violations across the state. This is perhaps one of the reasons that most of the regulators and legislators were worried that they some of them proposed that seniors and other groups with fixed and restricted incomes really need more protections.

So today, given that New Mexico is one of the only six states with no usury ceiling that would regulate licensed New Mexico payday loan and title loan lenders, that it is only the New Mexico Small Loan Act that has been currently regulating these New Mexico payday loan lenders, the state regulators and legislators strived to impose much stronger regulations to stop the statewide predatory lending. Many groups have joined the campaign and they highly expect that the New Mexico payday loan industry will voluntarily comply with the regulations.