Utah lawmakers have wrestled for years with the question of whether interest rates should be capped for check-cashing and deferred-deposit lenders. After all, their interest rates regularly run into the hundreds of percent, if computed on an annual basis.

But when bank credit card companies regularly charge 20-30 percent, plus exorbitant fees, it's hard to make the argument that a payday lender shouldn't be able to charge someone $15 for a $100 loan for two weeks. So, Utah legislators have shied from imposing rate caps, leaving consumers to the tender mercies of the unseen hand of the market to regulate interest.

Still, Sen. Karen Mayne, D-West Valley City, at least wants Utah financial regulators to keep a closer eye on the impact that payday lenders are having on consumers. Her Senate Bill 83 would require payday lenders to submit annual operations statements that would include:

* the average deferred deposit loan amount that the lender extended over the past year;

* the average number of days a deferred deposit loan is extended before it is paid in full;

* the minimum and maximum amount of interest or fees charged for a loan of $100 and extended for one week;

* the total number of loans rescinded by the lender at the request of the customer who returns the loan amount to the lender by 5 p.m. on the day after the loan transaction was consummated.

State regulators would be required to digest this information in an annual report to the governor.

Mayne's bill also would prohibit lenders from extending a new loan to a person on the same business day that the customer makes a payment on another loan, if the payment is made at least 12 weeks after the day on which that loan was originated and results in the principal of that loan being paid in full.

It's a sort of stop-loss provision that would prevent borrowers from turning debt over into more debt without a 24-hour cooling-off period.

Usury is but a quaint, biblical notion that no longer has any moral stigma in this country. But at least Mayne's bill would tell regulators just how big a bite the sharks are taking.