Credit card officials meet with government officials

Recent meetings have been held between the credit card industry and senior government officials after the Prime Minister and other MPs expressed concerns over the interest rates being charged by credit card firms and questioned whether consumers were being treated fairly by the credit card industry.

Gordon Brown recently said that credit card firms have to stop fleecing their customers and treating them unfairly, after news that interest rates on credit cards were still sky high even though the base rate has fallen by close to two thirds over the past year, and is likely to fall further still.

Credit card industry officials recently met with senior government officials including Business Secretary Lord Mandelson and Consumer Affairs Minister, Gareth Thomas. Mr Thomas stated: “The government is deeply concerned that borrowers aren’t getting a fair deal. That’s why we’ve taken swift action to bring the industry in to look at how costs are being applied to people’s existing debts.”

As part of the meeting credit card officials and government officials have been looking at risk based interest rates, where the rates on cards would be linked to the likelihood of the borrower defaulting on their repayments. Also, credit card firms will not chase outstanding credit card debt for at least thirty days as long as the borrower is working with a debt advisor.