cards
Before the implementation of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act almost a year ago, the banks had an upper hand over credit card holders and could tweak rules and increase interest rates and fees on cards as and when they deemed it fit. The implementation of this act brought about a much needed relief in terms of interest rates and fees for customers and made the entire industry more accountable for its actions. Customers also began to gain an understanding of the various fees they were paying for and the late payment charges were also brought under control.
Experts in the financial industry predicted that the banks would retaliate by increasing various credit card fees or would bring about stricter norms to govern the issuance of credit cards. But, the passage of time has revealed that these predictions have not come true. One of the recent studies conducted by the Safe Credit Cards Project run by Pew has revealed that post the implementation of the CARD Act, credit card fees dropped considerably. While some of them remained steady, a few of them like the inactivity fees were completely eliminated.
Before the implementation of the CARD Act, a whopping 80% of the credit cards had overlimit penalty fees in 2009. The implementation of the first phase of this act in the latter part of 2009 saw this fall to 23% in 2010 and once the second phase of this act was implemented this number further fell to a meager 11%.
Today, unlike predicted by the financial experts, most banks have regularized the fees on the credit cards, thereby allowing for the stabilization of credit card fees.
