Relational foundations of an unequal consumer credit market: Symbiotic ties between banks and payday lenders

Banks have financially supported payday lenders for decades. In this article I qualitatively demonstrate how these financial relationships have reinforced and expanded a bifurcated consumer credit market, and why these relationships matter for consumer access to financial services. I use archival financial documents from publicly traded payday lending companies between 1996 and 2014, available through the Securities and Exchange Commission, to construct the bank-payday lender network and reveal motivations for these financial relationships. I find that bank-payday lender relationships are sustained over many years, and that these relationships are mutually beneficial, enabling payday lender expansion and providing a way for banks to quietly profit from high-interest lending in the face of other regulatory constraints. Further, I show that these relationships have significantly reshaped the consumer credit market over the past two decades. I conclude by considering broader implications of symbiotic institutional relationships in contemporary markets.