Business News Roundup, Sept. 28

LendUp has agreed to pay $3.63 million to settle allegations by a federal regulator that the online lending company didn’t help customers get cheaper loans and build credit as promised, representing one of the first major enforcement actions against a fintech company. The lender, affiliated with San Francisco’s Flurish, didn’t have lower priced loans available to consumers where they were advertised, misled customers about the true cost of the loans and at times didn’t provide borrowers’ information to credit reporting companies, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Tuesday. “LendUp pitched itself as a consumer-friendly, tech-savvy alternative to traditional payday loans, but it did not pay enough attention to the consumer financial laws,” bureau Director Richard Cordray said in a statement. Regulators have been under pressure to adopt rules for technology companies offering financial services products to ensure safety without stifling innovation. The bureau has also been working to complete tougher rules for payday lenders and crack down on firms that prey on desperate people and trap them in debt. The 20-city price index plunged after the housing bubble started to burst in 2006, plummeting by more than a third before hitting bottom in March 2012. [...] prices are up 42.4 percent. Consumer confidence in September rose to the highest level in nine years, a hopeful sign that economic growth will accelerate in coming months. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 104.1, up from 101.8 in August. Many analysts expected that recent volatility in the stock market and some subpar economic readings on auto sales and manufacturing might lead consumers to feel less confident. Views about current economic conditions and expectations about future economic conditions both rose in the survey, a development that economists said should help boost consumer spending and the overall economy in coming months. The overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, has grown at a lackluster rate averaging 1 percent over the past nine months. The World Trade Organization dramatically slashed its forecast for trade growth this year by about a third to its lowest rate since 2009, when the global economy was mired in recession in the wake of the financial crisis. In an update to its forecasts Tuesday, the world’s leading trade body said the groundswell in antiglobalization sentiment could make matters worse, especially if policymakers respond to that in what it called a misguided manner. If the WTO’s forecast comes true, it will be the first time in 15 years that global trade grows more slowly than the world economy, which it expects to expand by 2.2 percent. “The dramatic slowing of trade growth is serious and should serve as a wake-up call,” WTO director-general Robert Azevedo said. “We need to make sure that this does not translate into misguided policies that could make the situation much worse,” he added, referring to job creation and economic growth. Stocks rebounded Tuesday and climbed on news of rising consumer confidence. Technology companies jumped, and solid results from cruise line operator Carnival sent travel-related companies higher.