CFPB Targets Credit-Card Fees as Undue, Discriminatory
Continuing its campaign against “junk fees” (see FSM Report CONSUMER38), the CFPB today issued a scathing report expanding the agency’s previous critique of credit-card fees. In a new report, the agency finds that the top twenty credit-card issuers charge higher late fees than 87% of other banks or credit unions, taking full advantage of what the report describes as “immunity” under the 2009 CARD Act (see Client Report CREDITCARD34). The report has no direct policy recommendations, but it targets fees levied at subprime accounts which, it says, are disproportionately costly to LMI communities and those of color.