On May 22, 2009, President Obama signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosures (Credit CARD) Act into law. The law, which went into effect on February 22, 2010 is meant to improve consumer disclosures and end some egregious practices in the credit card industry. Below are some highlights of the Credit CARD Act.

1. Credit card issuers will no longer be able to retroactively raise your interest rate under the “anytime, any reason” clause. The law restricts retroactive rate increases on existing balances except when a promotional rate expires, the variable indexed rate increases or the customer paid late by 60 or more days. In addition, if the rate was raised because of a late payment of 60 or more days, the bank must restore the lower rate once the cardholder has made six consecutive months worth of on-time payments.

2. Credit card issuers need to give consumers 45 days notice before they can make key changes to their contract. Prior to this law it was only 15 days. Note that while this provision does apply to interest rate increases it does not apply to credit limit changes.

3. Credit card issuers will not be able to charge customers over-limit fees unless the cardholder elected to allow the creditor to approve over-limit transactions. And even then the issuer may only charge one over-limit fee per billing period.

4. Credit card issuers will no longer be able to charge their customers a fee to pay their credit card balance. This has been a common practice for payments made by telephone or Internet. However, they will still be able to charge to expedite a payment.

5. This law places new restrictions on companies issuing cards to consumers under the age of 21. If a consumer under age 21 cannot prove an independent means of income then they must have a co-signer aged 21 or older in order to be approved for a card.

6. Cardholders will have more time to pay their bills. Under the new law credit card issuers must send statements 21 days before payment is due. Prior to this law they were only required to give 14 days notice.

While this new law certainly contains some important consumer protections it is worth noting that credit card issuers have had nine months since the passage of the bill to find ways to make up the lost revenues. Annual fee’s, which were commonplace until about 10 years ago, will make a big comeback. Citigroup has already announced that they plan to implement a $60 annual fee starting April 1, 2010. Other banks, such as Fifth Third, have announced a new inactivity fee on accounts that have not been used in the past 12 months. And still others, such as JP Morgan, have raised the cost of balance transfers from one card to another from 3% to 5%.

Now would be a good time to review your current credit card contracts to make sure you understand the rules and regulations. And as always, be sure to read all correspondence from your credit card issuers to avoid any unnecessary fees.