Senate panel takes up credit-card practices

March 7, 2007—A hearing on credit-card practices is slated today by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations chaired by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and including witnesses from major card issuers and the National Consumer Law Center.

The hearing, slated for 10 a.m., is the first of several planned to review credit-card practices. Today’s hearing will look at how card issuers determine fees and interest charges for consumers that carry balances on their cards and late-payment and over-limit charges. It will also look at an industry practice of applying payments first to balances with the lowest rates in effect instead of the highest.

The subcommittee says the hearing will also draw on a 2006 Government Accountability Office report on credit-card practices.

Today’s hearing witnesses include:

• Wesley Wannemacher, a consumer from Lima, Ohio;
  
  
• Alys Cohen, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center in Washington;
  
  
• Bruce Hammonds, president of Bank of America’s card services in Wilmington, Del.;
  
  
• Richard Srednicki, CEO of Chase Bank USA in Wilmington, Del.; and
  
  
• Vikram Atal, chairman and CEO of Citi Cards (Citigroup Inc.) in New York.

Credit-card practices were also addressed in a Jan. 25 hearing of the Senate Banking Committee. The House Financial Services Committee is also planning hearings.