SB 515 did not get the required votes to make it to the Senate floor in California. The Banking and Financial Institutions Committee voted 5-3 not to forward the bill to the full Senate.
Here is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to law makers. They try and create a law that defies free markets. By making the industry less profitable, it just scares away new entrants from entering the space. It’s called competition. Here is what one Senator had to say:
“Proponents of SB 515 argued that they are not seeking to kill the industry, simply to hold it to its advertised mission of offering emergency, occasional loans.”
This may be a silly analogy, but imagine if lawmakers decided that you could not charge more than $1 for a specific product?
- The product would never get better. It would get worse.
- There would be no incentive for new companies to compete b/c there is really no upside.