This seems to be a week for the credit card companies.
The American Bankers Association (ABA) reported this week that the percentage of credit card accounts that were 30 days or more past due reached 4.8 percent in the April-to-June period, an all time high that the ABA expects to get even higher in coming months.
Earlier this week, MNB reported on how four trade associations - the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS), the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA), and the National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA) – have filed an antitrust and class action lawsuit against Visa USA, MasterCard and a number of their member banks, charging them will colluding to set artificially high fees. The suit charges the credit card companies with fixing transaction fees at anticompetitive levels, and the banks with conspiring to set interchange fees at what they call “supracompetitive levels.”
And, we had a report about how major credit card companies are reaping huge profits from rising gas prices because the fee that banks charge gas stations to process a credit card transaction is based on a percentage of the purchase price. As gas prices go up, the processing fee goes up.
The American Bankers Association (ABA) reported this week that the percentage of credit card accounts that were 30 days or more past due reached 4.8 percent in the April-to-June period, an all time high that the ABA expects to get even higher in coming months.
Earlier this week, MNB reported on how four trade associations - the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS), the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA), and the National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA) – have filed an antitrust and class action lawsuit against Visa USA, MasterCard and a number of their member banks, charging them will colluding to set artificially high fees. The suit charges the credit card companies with fixing transaction fees at anticompetitive levels, and the banks with conspiring to set interchange fees at what they call “supracompetitive levels.”
And, we had a report about how major credit card companies are reaping huge profits from rising gas prices because the fee that banks charge gas stations to process a credit card transaction is based on a percentage of the purchase price. As gas prices go up, the processing fee goes up.
- KC's View:
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You can’t blame the credit card companies for consumer woes.
But that doesn’t mean that people won’t.
The tightness of the economy could create a real backlash against credit card companies that seem to be charging usurious rates. And could affect real spending as consumers try to get their habits and debts under control.
Maybe.
