An Unlikely Solution: Tribal Development and Consumer Finance

Please join us for a special documentary film premiere. An Unlikely Solution offers first‐​person perspectives on the unique, newly emerging phenomena of consumer lending, via the Internet, by Native American tribes.

There are few areas of finance that generate more controversy than short‐​term consumer lending, especially in the form of pay‐​day or installment loans. Critics see such loans as “predatory,” while others, including many consumers, see such products as filling a critical need of access to credit that traditional banks cannot or will not fill. As if to make an already controversial issue more so, a number of Native American tribes have entered this business, leveraging the power of the Internet to overcome the geographic challenges of remote reservations. The entry of lending companies formed as arms of tribal governments into this business has raised issues of tribal economic development and sovereignty, not normally considered in the regulation of consumer finance.

Join us for a screening (approximately 40 minutes) of An Unlikely Solution, which examines these questions from the first‐​person perspectives of tribes, consumers, regulators and others.

Following the film, there will be a special panel discussion featuring Gary Davis, President and CEO, National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development; William Isaac, Former Chair, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and Chico Harlan, Personal Economics Reporter, The Washington Post; moderated by Mark Calabria, Director, Financial Regulation Studies, Cato Institute.

Join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #UnlikelySolution.