Christy Hoppe, Dallas Morning News Blog:

It's mostly poor minorities -- most of them single women -- who are snapping up short-term, small-amount payday loans. Most of those loans carry an annual interest rate of 500 percent,
according to a survey of 5,000 borrowers in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio by Texas Appleseed, a law center that advocates for those with low-income.

In their survey, Texas Appleseed found the largely unregulated credit industry charged rollover and other fees that often exceeded the amount of the original loan but didn't reduce the principle.
Five Democratic House members, including Carol Kent of Dallas, have united behind a bill - HB 3744 - that would license and regulate payday lenders.

According to the survey, many borrowers take out less than $1,000 for two weeks to pay utilities or rent. They said they can't obtain such small, short-term loans from other lenders. More than
half said they usually have to pay fees for failing to repay the entire amount at the end of two weeks. 

The short-term credit industry said it does not oppose some oversight and has adopted its own best-practices guidelines that include fee and interest percentage disclosures, said Alex Vaughn, president of the Consumer Service Alliance of Texas.
"But we firmly believe consumers should have a variety of choices when deciding how to meet individual and family needs," Vaughn said.