The U.S. Department of Defense announced on Friday new financial protection regulations for military families that would reduce predatory lending practices, close loopholes in current rules and offer families consumer protections.

The rules would expand protections under the Military Lending Act, passed by Congress in 2006, to all forms of payday loans, vehicle title loans, refund anticipation loans, deposit advance loans, installment loans, unsecured open-end lines of credit and credit cards.

Under the current law, service members and their families benefit from a 36 percent interest-rate limit on all interest and fees, prohibits creditors from requiring onerous legal notice requirements or submit to arbitration and prohibits creditors from forcing service member to waive their rights to certain credit protections.

These regulations were put in place because predatory loan operations were clustering around military installations geared toward service members and charging them high interest, complex loans. Such as a 91-day or 181-day thresholds with triple-digit interest rates.

A Defense Manpower Data Center survey revealed that 11 percent of enlisted troops reported using loans with interest rates higher than the 36 percent cap that Congress tried to impose, according to Stars and Stripes.

"Some lenders responded by changing their products to fall outside the regulations narrow scope, thus allowing many predatory lending practices to continue and defeating diminishing the full impact of the legislation to protect our Military families," Department of Defense said in a press release announcing the proposal.

The proposed to change the regulations will be published in the Federal Register for public comment on Monday. Congressional approval is not needed to make the changes. DOD did not say when the new rules are expected to go into effect.