Student loans

GradFin offers advisory services to Americans who want assistance with their student loans. The acquisition is part of the Cleveland bank’s strategy of adding niche digital businesses.

During the pandemic, consumer lenders have found it easier to collect payments because the federal student loan moratorium has made many borrowers more liquid. A plan for blanket forgiveness reportedly under consideration by President Biden could sustain that trend.

The Biden administration once again extended the pause on student loan payments enacted to help borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic, this time through the end of August.

President Biden’s aspirations for aggressive forgiveness haven’t been fulfilled to date, but steps taken so far have lowered a key hurdle to entry-level homeownership.

Known as MOHELA 2021-3, the trust will issue a mix of fixed- and floating-rate notes from a capital structure with three tranches, or note classes.

Income share agreements, which allow college graduates to repay tuition financing as a percentage of their future income, have come under fire lately from consumer advocates for questionable marketing and other potential legal violations. Some hope a partnership between a Virginia bank and an ISA provider will give the product more legitimacy, while others worry it just masks risks for borrowers.

Cordray, named this week to lead the Education Department's office of federal student aid, cracked down on banks, student loan servicers and for-profit colleges when he was director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The deal between San Francisco-based lender and Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. V is latest example of a closely held firm going public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company.

The consumer bureau said the bank’s migration to a new servicing platform led to unauthorized payment withdrawals, misrepresentations about what borrowers owed and violations of a prior 2015 enforcement action.

The $10 billion portfolio of what are described as high-quality private student loans will be serviced by Nelnet.