The app-based cash advance business Brigit is in the state’s crosshairs over small loans that officials say carry super-sized interest rates of more than 700% in some cases.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued the company on Wednesday, saying the loans violate the state’s caps on interest rates and carry terms that are not clearly disclosed to consumers.

He said Brigit — officially Bridge It Inc. — needs to follow the same laws as any payday lender and not “take advantage of people who take desperate measures to afford their lives.”

Brigit Chief Operating Officer Fara Remtulla said Ellison is mischaracterizing the company’s earned wage access product as a payday loan.

“Brigit has operated in Minnesota for years, serving thousands of customers, with only a handful of complaints — a track record that speaks for itself," Remtulla said in a statement. “Brigit will defend this product, and the working Minnesotans who rely on it, vigorously.”

Brigit offers its products through a cellphone app. Users choose between repayment terms for its “Instant Cash” option through a tiered subscription model, between $8.99 and $15.99 per month. Those without the premium version pay “delivery” fees between $0.99 and $5.99 to process a transaction instantly.

Available cash advances run between $25 and $500. Brigit advertises its service as a way to get cash quickly and easily while building credit and improving finances.

Brigit says its loans carry 0% interest. But according to the state’s lawsuit, annual percentage rates on the small-dollar loans regularly tally above 300%, with some above 700%. These “extremely high rates of borrowing” are not disclosed to consumers, the attorney general alleges.

Remtulla said several other states, including Wisconsin and Indiana, have passed laws to distinguish “Earned Wage Access” from payday lending. In Wisconsin’s, for example, providers operate under a separate regulatory framework on fees and mandatory consumer disclosures.

Remtulla said Brigit is a “safe, affordable alternative” for Minnesotans to access money rather than overdrawing accounts or maxing out credit cards. Brigit has said payday lending laws don’t apply to its conduct because the company does not sue borrowers for nonpayment, making repayment effectively “voluntary,” according to the lawsuit. The company also does not report its cash advances to the major credit bureaus.

Ellison rejected the idea that the loans fall outside the bounds of current regulatory requirements.

“Regardless of how Brigit markets itself, the advances it offers consumers in need of cash are clearly loans,” Ellison said in a statement.

Brigit is owned by Plano, Texas-based Upbound Group Inc., a publicly traded holding company. Other brands in its portfolio include reverse layaway businesses Home Choice, Get It Now! and Rent-A-Center, which offer financing for products like furniture, appliances and televisions.

Lauren Saunders, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, said a number of financial technology firms have emerged in the payday lending space that are detrimental for individuals. A common defense made by the lenders is that the cash advances are not actually loans or that their fees do not amount to interest and finance charges, she said, though that theory has been rejected in 14 different cases nationally.

Saunders said the services exploit people who are struggling or living from paycheck to paycheck, and many become trapped in debt.

Effective interest rates of 700% are common across the industry, Saunders said, as the loans tend to be small and last only a few days. She said the payday loan industry has “a long history” of sidestepping laws, and the newer fintech companies have taken to evading them and impacting consumers even more aggressively.

“It’s a far more vicious cycle of reborrowing than traditional payday loans,” she said.

©2026 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.