credit card reform

The outcome of the credit card reform bill

Remember the Credit Card Reform bill that Obama signed into law last May?

"With this bill we are putting in place some common sense reforms designed to protect consumers," Obama said at a signing ceremony at the White House.

It was a proud day to be an American. Finally the government was standing up for the little guy.
For example, look at First Premier Bank Credit Cards. They were offering a $250 line of credit with a minimum of $256 in fees per year. But with the new law, fees were capped at 25% of the credit line.

Just a Little Minor Detail in Credit Card Reform Legislation - Small Business Still Screwed

A funny thing happened on the way to bill passage. Congress forgot all about small business and none of the credit card predatory lending limits apply to small business.

The House just passed the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights, which restricts some aggressive tactics by credit card companies, like arbitrary rate changes, applying payments in a way that maximizes interest charges, and double-cycle billing. But the bill as written doesn’t apply to small business credit cards, even though such cards are personally guaranteed and function exactly the same way consumer credit cards do. An amendment that would have made this change explicitly apply to cards issued to businesses with fewer than 500 employees did not make it out of committee yesterday.