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The House Financial Services financial institutions subcommittee today approved the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., contains many of the same provisions contained in new card-industry rules the Federal Reserve Board and other regulators finalized last year. Those rules, which will ban double-cycle billing and would prevent issuers from raising interest rates on cardholders' existing balances, are slated to go into effect July 1, 2010. Maloney's bill, originally introduced last year, was amended this week so that it would go into effect one year after its passage, or by June 30, 2010, whichever comes first. The new version of Maloney's bill contains a provision that would prohibit banks from reporting an account opening to the credit bureaus until the card is activated. An additional amendment adopted today would ban card issuers from charging customers fees for making card-account payments.
