Dec. 03--A federal watchdog determined that the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, called CARD Act for short, has helped reduce the cost of "gotcha" credit card fees by more than $16 billion.
The CARD Act cracked down on unexpected interest rate hikes, excessive late fees and hard-to-avoid over-limit fees, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in a 297-page report issued Thursday.
More than 100 million credit card accounts were opened in 2014 by all classes of consumer, but the bureau sees several potential pocketbook risks on the horizon for 2016, including deferred-interest financing promotions, subprime credit card terms and rewards programs that are hard to understand.
The report finds that, generally, consumers are paying less for their credit cards than they did before the law, and those costs are easier to predict before they are incurred.
But "there is more work to do," bureau Director Richard Cordray said in a statement.
Consumers had access to nearly $3.5 trillion in credit as of early 2015, up 10 percent from early 2012.
byerak@tribpub.com
