A few years ago I had this dream called "Jubilee Bank". It was a hybrid of micro-credit and "pay day lending". The idea was to use the network of churches in the UMC to advance money to a person in need (like a pay day lender would). However, the overhead of the Jubilee Bank would be much less than that of a single pay day lender thus, Jubilee Bank could afford to lower the interest rate (perhaps at the proposed cap of 35%). Additionally, rather than use the title of a car for collateral (like that of a Title Loan company) the Jubilee Bank might be more modeled after payday loans. This may insure the borrower could get quick cash to cover an emergency while ensuring the lender is not taking on too much risk. Jubilee bank would not have to receive interest, but make it clear that any over-drafting on the account of the borrower was risk they had to accept.
It never came to fruition but the dream still is there.
The payday lending area has been demonized by many with a lot of different data. Recently Freakanomics radio took on the merits of some of these claims in their episode, "Are Payday Loans Really as Evil as People Say?" This episode stoked the dream of Jubilee Bank.
I encourage you to take some time to listen to the episode and then close your eyes and see if you can see a world with a Jubilee Bank?