A plan that would limit many of the unfair and deceptive credit card billing practices in the news recently is being proposed by the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision, which oversees thrift institutions.
Under the proposed rules, it would be more difficult for a credit card company to increase a card holder’s percentage rate on an outstanding balance.
Double-cycle billing also wouldn’t be allowed. In this type of billing, the interest charge is calculated from the beginning of the previous billing cycle.
Relief from overdraft fees is being proposed for debit card holders. Consumers would be able to opt out of a thrift’s overdraft protection program. Now banks let debit card transactions to go through when a customer has overdrawn his or her account, but they add a large fee.
The proposed rules would only apply to thrift institutions. However, the Federal Reserve, which oversees banks, and the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates federal credit unions, are expected to adopt these rule changes by the end of this year, according to consumeraffairs.com.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) is sponsoring a bill in Congress, the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights, that includes many of the measures contained in the proposed rules.
