Does fringe banking exacerbate neighborhood crime rates

P ayday lenders have become the banker of choice for many residents of distressed urban communities in the United States. By offering cash advances on postdated checks, these businesses provide a growing number of financially strapped families the money they need to get by at least in the short run. As just one piece of a growing fringe banking industry (consisting of check cashers, pawn shops, rent-to-own stores, and other high-cost financial services), payday lenders provide services but at a heavy cost to some of the most financially vulnerable families. Much attention has been given to the costs the customers of such services are incurring. Yet additional broader community costs might have been ignored in recent debates and in the scholarly literature. One of those costs, and the focus of this research, is a possible link between payday lending and neighborhood crime rates.