White House Meeting with Credit Card Companies
Administration officials set to meet with nation’s largest issuers…
The top executives of 14 of the nation’s largest credit card companies will meet with Obama’s senior administration officials at the White House on Thursday for what is hoped to be constructive dialog about their efforts to increase transparency in their lending practices. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and other officials are planning to attend, but U.S. President Barack Obama is not, sources said. The White House has not announced the meeting and an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the meeting will take place but said Geithner’s attendance is not confirmed.
Scott Talbott, senior vice president for government affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents large banks and insurance companies, said the industry was “looking forward to a frank discussion with the administration about credit cards.” Executives from Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America, American Express, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Discover are all expected to be in attendance at the meeting.
With continued scrutiny and the possibility of additional legislation by Congress, the industry is looking to prove their willingness to make changes that will eliminate deceptive practices, such as arbitrarily raising interest rates, charging excessive fees and giving customers little time to make their payment on time. New rules addressing these issues were approved in December and won’t go into effect until July 2010, but are expected to be discussed.
Consumer advocates and congressional leaders said they were pleased that the Obama administration would meet with the card issuers. “The federal government is assisting the credit card companies in two significant ways, and we would hope this meeting would focus on how the White House can get credit card companies to immediately begin these reforms,” said Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America.
“If what we hear about a White House meeting is true, it makes a lot of sense given that President Obama campaigned on credit card reforms and the Fed has already ruled that their practices are unfair and deceptive,” said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who introduced one of the bills that aims to crack down on credit card practices.
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