My name is Barb Kalbach, I am a fourth-generation family farmer and nurse from rural Iowa and a longtime member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI).

Last week I called the offices of Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan to tell him to stop financing payday lenders. I talked to a young man Moynihan’s office and told him that I thought payday lending was an outrageous, predatory practice, and if Bank of America was serious about investing in communities they would get out of the business completely.

I told him that I live near Creston, IA, a small town of about 5,000 people that has a community college, a large nursing home, and three payday lenders.

Now, why in the world would a town of just 5,000 people need three payday lenders? In this case, I believe it is because they are targeting the students and aging population of Creston. They are preying on people who might fall into a desperate situation and making people poor. Every year in Iowa nearly $40 million leaves our cash-strapped state in fees to out of state payday lending corporations.

I told that young man in Moynihan’s office that there’s no other way to describe what these payday lenders are doing except to call it disgusting. I told him that as long as Bank of America continued to finance payday lenders, I wasn’t going to be doing any business with Bank of America. To be a huge bank, to take from the poor in such a shady way, is just so unethical. I told them they should be doing something positive – take that money and invest in communities. Bring that money back to places like Creston, a community that could really use some fresh development.

I highly suggest that those who are fed up with big bank greed go to http://showdowninamerica.org/payday_action to find out how to take action on this issue. National People's Action lays out the payday loan problem with a little dark humor, calling out the Big Banks on their unmitigated gall in helping loan sharks target the people who are suffering the most from the economic meltdown they created; and for becoming loan sharks themselves.