Mon
Feb 22 2010
08:18 am
By: R. Neal

Starting today, changes to Federal Reserve Truth in Lending regulations ("Reg Z") include new consumer protections for credit card holders. The new rules include:

  • 45 days notice of increased interest rates and fees.
  • Disclosing how long it will take to pay off your balance at the minimum payment.
  • No interest rate increases during the first year after opening an account.
  • Increased rates apply only to new charges.
  • Cap on annual fees of no more than 25% of first year's credit limit.
  • Consumers must opt-in to over-limit transaction fees, and only one fee per cycle is allowed.
  • Applicants under 21 must provide proof of ability to pay or have a co-signer.
  • Payments must be applied to the highest interest balances first.
  • Two-cycle billing (calculating interest on current and previous average daily balance) prohibited.
  • Billing at least 21 days before due date, regularly on the same day of the month, with allowance for holidays.

More info here...

UPDATE: These changes are good for consumers and long overdue, but credit card companies are already hatching new schemes.

JaHu's picture

It almost sounds as if a

It almost sounds as if a Democrats are leading this country. They now need to put a cap on interest rates. When Clinton was governor of Arkansas, he put a cap of 12%.

Pam Strickland's picture

Actually that wasn't Clinton.

Actually that wasn't Clinton. It was in the Arkansas state Constitution. It wasn't a number as I recall, but was tied to something as a usury law.

JaHu's picture

I stand to be corrected. It

I stand to be corrected. It was a usury law. All I remembered was my sister and her husband lived in Little Rock during Clinton's term as governor and I was told by them, at that time, that their credit cards had a cap of 12%. I was a young pup then and took it at face value. It seems that Congress later passed a banking law allowing lenders to either charge interest rates from their home state or their host state. This pretty much nullified Arkansas's usury law.

Somebody's picture

Marquette

It's known as the "Marquette Decision" of the US Supreme Court in 1978. Usury laws are only applicable based on the issuing bank's location, not the card holder's location.

After Marquette, all the banks moved to South Dakota and Delaware and started making their own rules.

(link...)

Incidentally, this is the same reason you don't want health insurance to start being sold across state lines in the absence of a robust new set of federal standards.

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