Initiative would severely limit payday loans

A group is planning to gather petitions for a ballot initiative that could cut back the profits of payday and car title loan businesses in Montana. A coalition is creating an initiative to limit the interest a business can charge on a loan to 36 percent a year, which would affect businesses that charge the equivalent of hundreds of percent in interest. In Montana, the current legal rate for payday lending is 650 percent a year, the initiative supporters say. The issue was a headliner in north-central Montana last fall, when a business created by the Chippewa Cree Tribe of Rocky Boy's Indian...