Low Interest Credit Cards

On Monday, the major provisions of the Credit CARD Act take effect, nine months after they were signed into law.

Many of these provisions will have a very positive effect on consumers, but the law has resulted in some unexpected fallout.

“The CARD Act has some very significant benefits for credit cardholders. The restrictions on interest rate hikes and the ban on over-the-limit fees are tremendous. Consumers have cried out for these protections for years and they are finally about to take effect,” says Bill Hardekopf, CEO of LowCards.com and author of The Credit Card Guidebook. “However, there are a number of unintended consequences that have resulted from the CARD Act. These changes might affect more credit card consumers than the law helped.”

Here is a look at some of the unintended consequences of the CARD Act:

* Since issuers will be unable to raise interest rates on new accounts for twelve months, they simply raised the advertised APR before February 22 so it affected everyone shopping for a new credit card account.

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Thanks to the Credit CARD Act, visitors to national parks can carry licensed firearms beginning on February 22.

It is hard to believe that this unique provision was added to the revolutionary credit card bill passed by members of Congress last May. Most of the attention from the bill has been given to the restrictions on interest rate increases and over the limit fees. However, there are many other lesser-known regulations in the Act that could have far-reaching ramifications for consumers.

Here is a look at some of those other provisions that take effect on February 22:

* Young adults who are under 21 will have a harder time building up their credit history. If they do not have a job with enough income, they must get an adult to co-sign. Fewer students will have credit cards and this will represent a major shift in spending patterns among young adults.

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The Credit Card Act of 2009, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in May 2009, has many consumer protections and provisions. The bill was slated to take effect in February 2010, but the House Financial Services Committee recently passed a bill to push the effective date to December 1, 2009. The bill’s sponsors, Carolyn Maloney D-NY and committee chairperson Barney Frank D-MA, wanted to move the effective date up to stop the banks that issue credit cards from squeezing the consumers with interest rate hikes and fees in anticipation of the new law.

Banks Concerned By Revised Timetable

Consumers have been struggling under difficult credit card rules, regulations and increasing rate hikes. Banks complain though that they can’t implement the required changes by the timetable required under the new bill. In

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