We usually think of payday lenders, pawn shops(典当行)and other high-cost loan operations as alternative forms of financing for peo

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问题     We usually think of payday lenders, pawn shops(典当行)and other high-cost loan operations as alternative forms of financing for people who are short of cash. But that’ s merely a false appearance: They couldn’ t operate without billions of dollars in cheap capital from the nation’ s biggest banks.
    It starts with some history: Back in the 1980s, the Main Street emergency lenders were fairly small and largely independent businesses. But then they started consolidating, looking for access to capital markets in order to deepen their liquidity and finance expansion. Cash America went public in 1987, and others followed. Banks took notice and started investing in what was becoming a profitable, highly reproducible franchise. The result is that while pawn shops and payday lenders charge high interest rates to borrowers, banks lend them money at standard business rates.
    The big high-cost lenders are up front about their dependence on Wall Street credit. " We depend on loans and cash management services from banks to operate our business," said Kansas-based QC Holdings in a 2012 filing. "If banks decide to stop making loans or providing cash management services to us, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. "
    But the banks themselves don’ t talk much about it—even though many of their executives sit on the boards of the companies, they keep rolling in cash. The irony is that some customers are driven to the high-cost loan industry precisely because they can’ t get credit through traditional channels. So the big banks benefit on both ends: They avoid taking on risky borrowers themselves , which preserves their reputations, while indirectly profiting off the exorbitant(过高的)interest the Main Street lenders charge.
    Reinvestment Partners, a North Carolina-based non-profit that advocates for the underbanked, put out a report Monday laying out how the system works and just how much money flows through it. "This paper is the kickoff point. Then go and make specific entreaties(恳求)to various banks, to find out why you think you’ re doing this, if you intend to keep doing this," says research director Adam Rust, who thinks bank sought to divest(放弃)high-cost lenders entirely.
    But high-cost lenders are entirely legal, and banks are disinclined to take their money out of circulation for debatable points of morality. So if that fails, Rust says he’ 11 ask the banks’ regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to ban the practice of financing high-cost loans. That’s a tall order too, given that cutting small lenders off from the capital markets would effectively put them out of business altogether—which a regulator would think really carefully before doing.
What’ s the relationship between banks and high-cost lenders?

选项 A、They are opposite sides.
B、They are mutually benefited.
C、Banks will merge high-cost lenders.
D、High-cost lenders will replace banks.

答案B

解析 根据题干中的关键词relationship,banks,high-cost lenders,将本题定位于第3、4段。第3段提到,大型高成本贷款机构依赖银行的贷款和现金管理服务来经营业务;第4段提到,向贷款机构发放贷款让银行两头受益。可见,两者是互惠的关系。故答案为B(它们互相受惠)。A项(两者是对立的)、C项(银行会兼并高成本的贷款机构)和D项(高成本的贷款机构将取代银行),文中均没有提到,故排除。
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