Payday loans from your bank?

Today my debit card was declined when my wife tried to make a purchase. When I checked my bank balance it was negative. It turns out that a check we received recently was still sitting on my nightstand waiting to be deposited. Oops! Now checks we wrote are bouncing left and right. But I digress...

Anyway, when I logged into my online banking to check my balance, I noticed a new link that lets me get an advance on my next automatic deposit. Out of curiosity I checked it out and, sure enough, they want to charge me $1 for every $10 I borrow. That's almost as bad as a check cashing place! Probably cheap for a payday loan though. I wouldn't know. Not anything I've had to do before. But I do find it interesting that the banks see payday loans as an opportunity now too. A quick search on the web shows that the term "Payday Loan" was searched for nearly 840,000 times in august. Incidentally, the term "Home Equity Loan" had only 650,000 searches in the same month. Sort of tells you how bad a shape we're generally in. People with equity are spending their equity. People with no equity are getting cash advances on their paychecks. And the rest of us are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Scary stuff.