(snip)"Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. plans to raise interest rates on a majority of credit-card customers by 3 percentage points before federal rules limiting such increases take effect, a company executive said.

“This is something we’ve been contemplating for quite a period of time,” Kevin Rhein, group head of card services for the San Francisco-based bank, said today in a telephone interview. “We had just reached the point that we don’t think we can offer credit cards at the current pricing and keep credit flowing.”

Wells Fargo began advising customers this week that the change takes effect on Nov. 30. That’s a day before House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank wants curbs on rates and fees to become effective under the new U.S. credit- card law. The Massachusetts Democrat plans a hearing tomorrow on moving up the date to Dec. 1 from Feb. 22 to head off increases by card issuers."(snip)




Translation : the proposed Credit Card bill of rights would limit banks' ability to recoup losses from deadbeat card holders via high penalty interest rates / fees. So in order to recoup these losses banks are increasing interest rates on credit card holders in good standing before the Credit Card bill of rights prevents them from doing so. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but an unwilling lunch buyer can usually be found by clever legislators.