{"id":15636,"date":"2010-06-28T20:00:31","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T00:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?p=15636"},"modified":"2010-06-28T20:00:31","modified_gmt":"2010-06-29T00:00:31","slug":"credit-cards-and-the-financial-reform-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/credit-cards-and-the-financial-reform-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Credit Cards And The Financial Reform Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

The financial reform act has not been signed into law yet.\u00a0\u00a0 Nevertheless, it has come out of conference committee and will be voted on in the House and possibly filibustered in the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0 For the last week, there has Now that some time has passed since the compromise regarding credit card reform has been announced, some details are starting to emerge about how the bill will affect credit cards in particular.<\/p>\n

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau<\/strong><\/p>\n

The idea behind this new agency is to consolidate the regulatory powers of many agencies that have some authority over consumer financial products.\u00a0\u00a0 This was originally designed to be the financial counterpart of the Consumer Product Safety Commission<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 This new commission will have the authority to regulate credit cards on an ongoing basis.\u00a0\u00a0 This corrects a key fault in the CARD\u00a0 Act, the fact that banks will continue to “innovate” new tricks and traps subsequent to many of their traditional abuses being abolished by CARD.\u00a0\u00a0 If this new agency works as designed, they will be able to ban unfair credit card industry practices as they are implemented, without an act of Congress.<\/p>\n

Access To Your Credit Score<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the past, you could get a free copy of your credit report, but not the score.\u00a0\u00a0 With this new law, you would be entitled to the score if you have been the result of any negative action resulting from your score.\u00a0 In practice, you will essentially be entitled to the score under almost any circumstance.\u00a0\u00a0 It has always been a mystery to me why these scores are kept secret.\u00a0\u00a0 It would seem to be in everyone’s interest that people monitor their credit score and actively try to improve it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It looks like Congress is finally getting around to dragging the industry kicking and screaming into the future.<\/p>\n

Swipe Fees<\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems the entire credit card industry as well as the reward card junkies like myself have dodged a bullet in that the new act will not directly curtail swipe fees in credit cards.<\/p>\n

Merchant Acceptance Of Credit Cards<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there is a real threat to the status quo of no fee cards with cash back.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This bill specifically grants retailers the right to set a minimum purchase requirement of up to $10 for credit cards.\u00a0\u00a0 It also specifically grants merchants the ability to set discounts for cash or debit cards.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Technically, credit card companies have not forbid this in the past, but it was rarely used.\u00a0\u00a0 Occasionally you would see a gas station offer a small cash discount.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Based on past experiences, it will be interesting to see if cash discounts become commonplace.\u00a0\u00a0 I sincerely hope not, as any cash discount of over one percent will kill the value in just about any reward scenario while making transactions more confusing.<\/p>\n

Sorting Out The Details<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ron Lieber of the New York Times has a fairly detailed article <\/a>about how the bill relates to credit cards and other important aspects of this legislation.\u00a0\u00a0 As usual, he really cuts through the confusion that has surrounded this act and provides all the info that curious observers need to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The financial reform act has not been signed into law yet.\u00a0\u00a0 Nevertheless, it has come out of conference committee and will be voted on in the House and possibly filibustered in the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0 For the last week, there has Now that some time has passed since the compromise regarding credit card reform has been announced, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nCredit Cards And The Financial Reform Act<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/credit-cards-and-the-financial-reform-act\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Credit Cards And The Financial Reform Act\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The financial reform act has not been signed into law yet.\u00a0\u00a0 Nevertheless, it has come out of conference committee and will be voted on in the House and possibly filibustered in the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0 For the last week, there has Now that some time has passed since the compromise regarding credit card reform has been announced, […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/credit-cards-and-the-financial-reform-act\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-29T00:00:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Steele\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jason Steele\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. 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