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The New York Stock Exchange is seen during morning trading on July 31, 2024 in New York City.  Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images Last year, banks quickly raised interest rates to record levels and added new monthly fees on credit cards when a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule threatened a key revenue source for the industry. Now, they’re far more reluctant to reverse those steps, even after bank trade groups succeeded in killing the CFPB rule in federal court last month. Synchrony and Bread Financial, two of the biggest players in the business of issuing branded credit cards for the likes of Amazon, Lowe’s and Wayfair, are keeping the higher rates in place, executives said in recent conference calls. “We feel pretty comfortable that the rule has been vacated,” Synchrony CEO Brian Doubles said on April 22. “With that said, we don’t currently have plans to roll anything back in terms of the changes that we made.” His counterpart at Bread, CEO Ralph Andretta, echoed that sentiment, “At this point, we’re not intending to roll back those changes, and we’ve talked to the partners about that.” The CEOs celebrated the end of a proposed CFPB regulation that was meant to limit what Americans would pay in credit card late fees, an effort that the industry called a misguided and unlawful example of regulatory overreach. Under previous Director Rohit Chopra, the CFPB estimated that its rule would save families $10 billion annually. Instead, it inadvertently saddled borrowers with higher rates and fees for receiving paper statements as credit card companies sought to offset the expected revenue hit. Retail cards hit a record high average interest rate of 30.5% last year, according to a Bankrate survey, and rates have stayed close to those levels this year. “The companies have…

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Filed under: News - @ May 7, 2025 11:26 am