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

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.
Why did banks start to invest in high-cost lenders in the 1980s?
选项 A、Because these lenders asked banks for help.
B、Because a policy was issued by the government.
C、Because it is a highly profitable business.
D、Because these lenders were franchise of banks.
答案C
解析 根据题干中的关键词banks，invest，1980s，将本题定位于第2段。第2段提到，20世纪80年代，贷款机构逐渐进入资本市场以提高它们的流动性和融资扩张，还有一些机构相继上市；银行注意到了这个现象，并开始投资这一即将有利可图且高度可重复的专营权。也就是说，银行之所以进行投资，是因为这一行业有利可图。故答案为C(因为这一业务利润很高)。A项(因为这些贷款机构向银行求助)，文中没有提及，故排除；B项(因为政府颁布了一项政策)，银行投资也并非这个原因，故排除；D项(因为这些贷款机构拥有银行的专营权)，银行投资的根本原因是因为此业务利润高，而非是其专营权，故排除。
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