Last year, 189,231 Alabamians took out 1.6 million payday loans worth about $563.6 million from lenders in the state. They paid about $98.4 million in fees, according to a database kept by the Alabama Department of Banking.

“It’s absolutely massive,” Dev Wakeley, a policy analyst for the progressive advocacy group Alabama Arise, said recently about the fees paid by borrowers.

“All this money is getting syphoned out of communities and most of it goes out of state.”

Payday lending reform, specifically the fees allowed to be charged to borrowers, has become a perennial issue in the Alabama State House. A bill by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, to give borrowers up to 30 days to repay the money instead of what can be 10 to 20 days, was killed earlier this month on an 8-6 vote in the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee.

“The fact that this bill got shut down in committee does not negate the fact that there is a massive need for reform,” Wakeley said. Read more.