With a vote of 361-64, the House of Representatives approved the credit card legislation which passed the Senate yesterday. The bill is expected to be signed by President Obama on Friday, and will go into effect 9 months later.
We are reaching the final stages of a process which was kick started last May by the Federal Reserve when they solicited comments from credit cardholders and credit card companies about potential regulatory changes in the industry. After cardholders submitted a massive number of comments complaining about the unfair and misleading practices of the industry, the Federal Reserve adopted credit card regulations which were to go into effect in July 2010. Due in part to the economic downturn and the bailout of our financial institutions by the government, the House and Senate are in agreement that additional measures to protect consumers from the credit card industry were needed.
[Click here to get the details of the legislation and finish reading this post.]Chase Blueprint Offers Online Money Management Tools Free for Select Chase Credit Cards
A new online tool from Chase is garnering a fair amount of media attention recently. Known as Blueprint, it is part of a broad media campaign hoping to convince you that J.P. Morgan Chase wants to help you manage your finances (as well as rack up interest rate and fee charges!).
Chase Blueprint offers certain [...]
How About a Housing Subsidy for Unemployed Individuals?
My post yesterday about Congressional efforts to extend unemployment led me to a rather off-the-cuff comment about how efforts to reform unemployment have left those homeowners without a job to face the brutal foreclosure system. And the unemployed homeowners aren’t able to qualify for programs to modify their mortgages because they don’t have sufficient [...]
[Click here to finish reading this post...]Unemployment Extension Considered by Congress
I put down my keyboard for a few days after the President signed the congressional legislation offering the nation credit card reform. The result has been a long vacation and four months of silence on this website. When I woke up this morning, I noticed a brief news story regarding consideration of the [...]
[Click here to finish reading this post...]Obama Administration Discusses New Financial Regulator To Protect Consumers
Yesterday, when discussing the Senate’s credit card legislation, I was skeptical that the bill had done enough to level the balance of power between financial institutions and banks when it came to issues of credit card and debt contract terms and fees.
Today, newspapers are reporting that President Obama’s administration is actively discussing the creation of a financial products regulator to act as a financial consumer protection agency related to mortgages, mutual funds, and credit cards.
[Click here to finish reading this post...]Senate Passes Credit Card Bill
The Senate adopted new legislation aimed at curtailing the practices of the credit card industry today (May 19th) by a vote of 90-5.
The Senate and House will now look to reconcile the differences between the Senate’s credit card bill and the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights, which was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year. This is expected to occur fairly quickly, as I have seen projections that President Obama’s Memorial Day deadline for a bill to sign may be met.
The headlines in the newspaper and margin of victory in the Senate suggest that the tide has swung against the credit card lobby … but has it really? Continue reading for more information about the contents of the legislation and what it means for your credit card bill in the future.
[Click here to finish reading this post...]
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