Forget payday loans, this is Canada’s new generation of high-interest loans

Anti-poverty advocates say a growing number of low-income Canadians is borrowing through personal loans that are much bigger, and more loosely regulated, than payday loans.

All Kathleen Zane wanted to do was buy a couch. Instead, she says she ended up with $5,850 in debt and a personal loan with an annual interest of 29.99 per cent.

“I was crying,” Zane says of the moment she says she realized how high her interest rate was.

Debt from high-interest installment loans, a fairly new product which has gained popularity in recent years, is becoming increasingly common among Canadians with low credit scores or short credit histories. And critics say the loans can be as treacherous for consumers as payday loans.

Borrowers can only take out a maximum of $1,500 through a payday loan, notes Donna Borden, a national leader at anti-poverty group ACORN leader and acting chair of the organization’s the East York Chapter in Toronto.

“Now, if somebody wants more … then (lenders) just say, ‘Well, we’re providing installment loans,” she says.

ACORN says it has seen a 300 per cent increase in the share of borrowers taking out high-interest installment loans between 2016 and 2021.

Payday lenders are exempt from federal rules capping the maximum annualized interest at 60 per cent and can charge interest rates of up to 500 or 600 per cent. But they are also small, short-term loans — and often tightly regulated. Canadians cannot borrow more than $1,500 through a single payday loan and usually must pay the loan from their next paycheque, according to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC).

High-interest installment loans, on the other hand, are subject to the 60 per cent limit on interest. But they also allow Canadians to borrow up to tens of thousands of dollars for terms of up to several years, sometimes resulting in consumers paying more in interest than they received through the loan payout.