As the end of World War II brought about a housing boom, the market for consumer home lending expanded significantly, and the financial institutions that had traditionally provided mortgages to working-class Americans faced new competitive pressures. Although the United States League of Local Buildings and Loans in America (USLLBLA), an association of institutions focused on savings accounts and homeowner lending, did not oppose the entry of other lenders into the market, it did lobby to retain the privilege of offering higher interest rates on savings accounts than banks were allowed to give.
These efforts were spurred in part by the expansion of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), a federal agency that began to insure mortgages with increasingly consumer-friendly terms. The FHA rules, like USLLBLA, allowed people to afford homes who otherwise could not have done so. It did this in part by