West Virginia Senate Bill 702 Explained

Is West Virginia Senate Bill 702 law? No. As of November 6, 2026, its last recorded action is a February 12 committee report sending it to the Senate Finance Committee, and we found no floor vote, passage or signature after that.

If it did pass, SB 702 would let licensed consumer lenders charge up to 36% a year on installment loans up to $35,000, in place of the caps of 31%, 27% and 18% that the bill text lists today. At the maximum rates on a $20,000 loan over five years, that is the difference between about $10,472 and $23,360 in interest.

For a buyer weighing an installment loan while a closing date runs down, the existing tiers are still the numbers to check a quote against.

Sen. Mike Azinger, a Republican from District 3, introduced SB 702 on February 2, 2026. It amends W. Va. Code §46A-4-107, the section that governs finance charges, meaning the cost of borrowing, on loans from licensed regulated consumer lenders. These are the companies the state licenses to make this kind of loan.

The bill states its purpose as "to set a maximum interest rate which licensed regulated consumer lenders may charge on installment loans." It covers loans up to $35,000 with terms of 6 to 120 months, repaid in substantially equal payments. The charge could reach 36% a year on the unpaid principal balance, which is the part of the loan not yet repaid.

The bill also removes an existing cap on nonrevolving loans when a finance charge is calculated. A nonrevolving loan is one you borrow once and pay down, unlike a credit card you can keep drawing on. The sources we reviewed do not give the size of that cap, so its dollar effect cannot be priced here.

The fiscal note, the document meant to estimate a bill's budget effect, came from the West Virginia Division of Financial Institutions. The version on the Legislature's page contains no cost or revenue figures.

The bill cleared one committee and stopped at the next. FastDemocracy's tracker, which mirrors the Legislature's records, lists no roll-call votes and shows no passage in either chamber.

The public support comes from two industry trade groups. The American Financial Services Association, or AFSA, represents installment and consumer lenders. It says a single rate modernizes the state's credit code, is simpler, could help more consumers qualify, and may reduce reliance on unregulated, higher-risk lending.

The American Fintech Council, or AFC, sent its letter to the Senate Finance Committee. It argues that licensed lenders could serve more borrowers, including in rural and underserved minority communities, while staying under state oversight. Its director of state government affairs, Ashley Urisman, called the change "a clear, evidence-based standard."

Read both as one side of the debate. Both groups' members are lenders, the AFC release offers no independent borrower analysis, and we found no consumer-group position in the sources reviewed. AFC's framing of a rise "from 31% to 36%" also describes only the smallest tier. On a loan over $15,000, the listed cap would double, from 18% to 36%.

AFC's triple-digit argument is about high-cost credit in general, and that is a separate question from whether payday loans are legal in the state. AFSA adds its own caveat: "Very small dollar loans remain challenging under the new framework."

This is also a second attempt. A 2025 predecessor, SB 729, covered the same $35,000 loan cap and also removed the nonrevolving cap. The sources reviewed here do not include SB 729's full text or say how it ended, so a closer comparison is not possible.

Nothing changes for a borrower today, because the bill has not passed. The figures below show what would change if it did. A cap is a ceiling rather than a set price, so a lender could charge less. These examples show the most each rule would allow.

Fees sit on top of those figures. A 2% origination fee would add $200 to the $10,000 loan and $400 to the $20,000 loan. On a $20,000 loan secured by real estate, a 5% fee would be $1,000. On the $3,000 loan, the 2% processing fee would be $60, which brings the 31% option to about $1,123 in charges, still below 36% with no fee.

For a buyer under contract, the monthly payment matters as much as the total. It counts as monthly debt, so the extra $214.79 in the $20,000 example would push up your debt-to-income ratio, the share of income that goes to debts. You can check that ratio against loan limits before you sign anything.

The next step today is simple. Find your loan size in the table above and compare the lender's quote with the listed cap. If a licensed lender quotes more than that, ask which provision of §46A-4-107 allows it, since SB 702 cannot be the answer unless it is enacted.

Whether 36% is the proposal or already the law. One summary of the Legislature's page labels the 36% language as existing §46A-4-107(2). That does not fit the bill's stated purpose, the tracker's subject line ("setting new maximum annual interest rate") or AFSA's account of a tiered structure being replaced, so we treat 36% as proposed. The enrolled statute or the Division of Financial Institutions would settle it.

What happens to the 31% plus 2% option. The bill text carries it, while the trade groups describe a single flat rate and do not mention it. Reading the two together, it may survive as a lower-rate alternative for small loans, but the sources do not spell out how it would work beside the 36% provision.

Whether the cap is an APR. AFSA calls it a 36% APR, the yearly cost of a loan with certain fees counted. The bill text describes 36% a year on the unpaid principal balance. If origination fees could come on top, the all-in cost could exceed 36%. The sources do not resolve this.

When it would apply. The sources give no effective date, and they do not say whether it would reach loans already made. Even if the bill passed before year-end, we could not tell you from these records when a new rate would first appear on a quote.

No source we reviewed gives a scheduled date for any of these. They are listed in the order the bill would need them:

1. Senate Finance Committee action. This is the next step on the record, and nothing has been logged since February 12.
2. A Senate floor vote. None is listed so far.
3. House action. The tracker shows the House has not taken the bill up.
4. A signature. Only then would the new caps replace the tiers in the table above.

One more signal is a refiled bill in a later session, since SB 702 itself followed SB 729 from 2025. Until any of these appears on the Legislature's bill page or the tracker, assume the listed caps apply and plan your closing around them.