Senator Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, reintroduced the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act into the U.S. Senate this week.  Although some of the provisions are similar to the Federal Reserve regulations which will be implemented in July 2010, there are additional provisions in the bill as currently drafted which make it [...]

JP Morgan Chase took action recently to cut off the supply of low cost credit it offered to consumers through promotional balance transfer rates.  I’m sure that we all remember the good old days when banks offered a low interest rate balance transfer at a fixed rate for the life of the balance of the [...]

There was an article in Marketwatch a couple of days ago discussing how interest rates on credit cards haven’t declined as fast as the Federal Reserve has cut its target rate.  One commentator in the article suggested that credit card rates would edge up by the end of the year. That’s not surprising, as [...]

The United States isn’t the only country where consumers are having difficulty with credit card debt and rising expenses.  I previously discussed the problem with credit card debt in Great Britain.  And numerous news stories have focused on the growing problems with credit card debt in other countries in the world.
Australians owe a national record [...]

Credit card companies have pretty much always felt free to adjust the interest rate on their fixed rate credit cards. That is, until last year when Citibank decided that the fixed interest rate on its credit cards would no longer be increased at any time for any reason. Citigroup has since rethought that [...]

The United States isn’t the only country where consumers are having difficulty with credit card debt and rising expenses.  I previously wrote about the problems with credit card debt in Great Britain.  And several new news articles have focused on the spreading consumer debt crisis around the world:
Australians owe a national record $44.2 billion in [...]

In its effort to save itself from the credit crisis, Citibank is risking alienating the majority of its customers and federal legislators and regulators as well.  Citibank started with a controversial new student loan policy announced after the Federal Reserve proposed regulations that would prohibit the announced practices.
Now, Citibank feels comfortable reconsidering promises made to [...]

A New York consumer is facing a lawsuit from Citibank to recover an interest rate of 56 percent on cash advances, according to WCBS.

A Las Vegas consumer owes ~ $1,200 on a credit card that she never used, according to the Herald-Leader.

Even though the decision of the Federal Reserve not to increase interest rates last week should mean that consumers are safe from credit card interest rate increases (read more at Taking Charge), Pioneer Press reports that “[n]ervous banks are raising interest rates for almost any reason.”

Business Week has put together a video with the basics about the credit card industry practices, why the credit crisis has escalated the problem of increasing interest rates, and a brief discussion of the credit card reforms in Congress. Here is the video: