The passage of the credit card bill has gone remarkably fast. The House version passed during the last days of April and the Senate version just got passed last week. A few days later and President Barack Obama signed the bill into law.
Credit cardholders are excited to finally see some sensible regulation for credit cards. Long feeling oppressed and frustrated by arbitrary interest rate increases and unreasonable fees, credit cardholders have been pressing for the passage of the credit card bill since it first came out in congress.
On the other hand, the credit card industry has been against the credit card bill from the start. Their stance is quite understandable, considering that, with the passage of the credit card bill, they have been essentially stripped of their most lucrative customers the past few years, subprime borrowers.
Partially to limit support for the credit card bill, the credit card industry has been issuing dire warnings of what is to come should the credit card bill become law. One of the most ominous is that responsible cardholders, those who keep their payments up to date and maintain good credit scores, will get hit hard and will basically end up supporting bad borrowers.
The credit card industry says that this will happen because, in order to make up for their losses and decrease their exposure to financial risks, they will have to make credit much less available to credit cardholders, regardless of credit standing. Annual fees will be making a comeback. Initial interest rates will also soar to balance out the inability of borrowers to increase interest rates on existing debts. Reward point programs will also be put a stop or, at least severely curtailed.
These dire warnings, though worrying, may not actually come true. What will assuredly happen when the credit card law becomes active is that credit cardholders will again have some confidence and trust on their credit cards. They won't be worrying about high interest rates and fees and other unfair credit card industry practices.
The credit card bill won't save all credit cardholders, however. Those with large credit card debts will have a ways to go to get out of debt. At the very least, however, they won't have as hard a time paying down their debts.
With credit cardholders much more confident, cardholders will most likely be returning to their plastic for their purchases. They will also most likely be more choosy and intelligent in their choice of credit cards, what with the new credit card bill transparency measures. This will mean high competition among credit card companies. With competition taking place, the credit card company able to offer the best features and incentives package wins which makes the probability of the industry's dire warnings coming true very low indeed.