Exodus Lending, which launched two years ago from a Minneapolis Lutheran congregation as the first alternative to payday loans, has made its 100th loan, including to 41 working-poor borrowers who were refinanced from the “payday loan debt trap” and repaid in full.
“We had no idea the program would grow this big and help so many people,” said Exodus co-founder Meghan Olsen Biebighauser. She estimates it has saved borrowers who were paying an average of 425 percent in annualized interest nearly $300,000 in fees and interest on nearly $70,000 in principal.
“We’re disrupting a system of wealth extraction from our community,” she said.
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