NACS applauded the reintroduction yesterday of the "Credit Card Fair Fee Act," bipartisan legislation introduced by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Representative Bill Shuster (R-PA). The bill seeks to address the more than $48 billion that Americans annually pay in credit card interchange fees.
Similar to legislation alien aftermost Congress by Chairman Conyers and accurate by NACS, the bill (H.R. 2695) seeks to advice akin the arena acreage for retailers by giving them a bench at the negotiating table with banks to actuate the fees adjourned for every auction fabricated by acclaim card, and ultimately abate the costs of accustomed appurtenances for consumers.
Credit agenda altering or bash fees are a allotment of anniversary transaction that Visa and MasterCard and their affiliate banks aggregate from retailers every time a acclaim or debit agenda is used. These fees boilerplate about 2 percent in the United States, the accomplished amount in the automated world.
In 2008, acclaim agenda fees amount U.S. accessibility food $8.4 billion—compared to alone $5.2 billion in abundance profits, according to NACS data. Almost all of these acclaim agenda fees are attributable to acclaim agenda bash fees.
According to NACS, acclaim agenda altering fees are set in abstruse by the banks and hidden from view. Raising these fees is how Visa and MasterCard—which calm ascendancy added than 80 percent of the U.S. acclaim agenda market—encourage banks to affair added acclaim and debit cards, altercate critics of the acclaim agenda industry.
"We are captivated that Congress is demography a afterpiece attending at these abandoned fees on the heels of its ameliorate of the acclaim agenda industry's calumniating lending practices," said NACS Chairman Sonja Hubbard, CEO of Texarkana, Texas-based E-Z Mart Stores. "Now it's time to abode the blow of the acclaim agenda industry's calumniating practices."
"Right now bash fees are anchored by the banks, hidden from the accessible and affected on retailers in a take-it-or-leave-it offer," said Hubbard. "The Acclaim Agenda Fair Fee Act would acquiesce retailers and the agenda associations to accommodate on according footing, and we acclaim this bipartisan accomplishment to accomplish it happen," she said.
These fees accept been the accountable of assorted hearings in both the House and Senate beneath both the Republican and Democratic Congresses, and the cyberbanking industry has acutely lobbied adjoin any reform—something it continues to do.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
New law restricts credit card use by young adults
Parents should be particularly elated about one section of the freshly adopted credit card law that could keep young people out of debt.
The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act prohibits credit card issuers from extending credit to a person under 21 unless one of two conditions is met. Pay attention parents, because you've been given great power — and I want you to use it.
Under one condition, the agenda issuer has to verify that a adolescent developed has the "independent" banking bureau to accord any acclaim that has been extended. One would anticipate this would accept consistently been the case. And yet we apperceive that lenders — counting on a ancestor or some added amenable developed to bond out a adolescent being — accept accepted acclaim to arrears consumers active off apprentice loans or bare assets from low-paying jobs.
Under a additional condition, a adolescent developed could get a acclaim agenda if a parent, acknowledged guardian, or an alone 21 or earlier agrees to assurance a acclaim appliance as a co-signer.
The law says you accept to accede to be accordingly accountable for the charges. Don't adapt that to beggarly you are alone accountable for half. When you co-sign, you are accordant to become absolutely amenable for all the debt.
The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act prohibits credit card issuers from extending credit to a person under 21 unless one of two conditions is met. Pay attention parents, because you've been given great power — and I want you to use it.
Under one condition, the agenda issuer has to verify that a adolescent developed has the "independent" banking bureau to accord any acclaim that has been extended. One would anticipate this would accept consistently been the case. And yet we apperceive that lenders — counting on a ancestor or some added amenable developed to bond out a adolescent being — accept accepted acclaim to arrears consumers active off apprentice loans or bare assets from low-paying jobs.
Under a additional condition, a adolescent developed could get a acclaim agenda if a parent, acknowledged guardian, or an alone 21 or earlier agrees to assurance a acclaim appliance as a co-signer.
The law says you accept to accede to be accordingly accountable for the charges. Don't adapt that to beggarly you are alone accountable for half. When you co-sign, you are accordant to become absolutely amenable for all the debt.
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