After Congress passed legislation last year reining in some of the worst credit card lending practices, many banks responded by hiking interest rates before the new rules went into effect, including on customers with perfect bill paying records.
Now Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, is calling on the Federal Reserve Board to require banks to roll back those unfair interest rate hikes and to put stronger limits on the size of penalty fees and interest charges.
The Fed has already proposed new regulations that would limit penalty fees and require banks to reconsider interest rate hikes imposed during the year leading up to the enactment of key CARD Act protections on February 22, 2010.
Tags: Credit Card, Interest Rate, Rate