The definition of usury is "the charging of unreasonable or relatively high rates of interest." The debtor (aka, the cash-strapped individual, or the issuer of debt) seeks leveraged finance, and the financer has profited from this transaction by lending the debtor money and taking a huge spread.
However, there is a case of modern-day usury as well. But this time, it doesn't involve leveraged finance, but it does involve equity-based finance. I'm referring to the the excessive and unreasonable profiteering on equity-based financing. For example, when a CEO or some other executive leads a company that is losing money, she/he still makes a killing. Dick Grasso earned over $100M at the NYSE even though the NYSE lost money in 2001.
This modern-day usury is a loophole in the laws and also within the tenets of Christianity. However, in our minds, we intuitively know that this is immoral and excessive. Instead of profiting via leveraged finance, the profiter makes his earnings on equity based financing.