It’s possible that you’ve heard some news about payday lenders lately. The legislatures in a few states have passed laws allowing cash loans with terms as short as seven days in duration. Naturally, there are costs of doing business associated with providing short term loans, so by contrast to other loans they have much higher annual percentage rates. Higher, that is, than the interest rates currently available on bank and credit union loans. And you may have also heard that particular consumer action groups are fighting this type of business because it can be a problem for some payday lenders’ customers who fail to budget repaying their loan out of their next paycheck.