I agree that a credit issuer should not want to lend to someone who has less than excellent credit and an excellent ability to pay. I think that is actually a good thing for consumers, because if they can’t pay, they shouldn’t be buying on credit anyway. That’s what got the U.S. citizens in their current crisis situation where they are now scrambling to try to do debt consolidations and settlements. Many card issuers extended credit when they should not have for the sake of profits. I also agree that some of the so-called protections will hurt consumers, but that is par for the course when the government tries to take over more of our free market system and run things. They end up hurting our economy.

If someone is working on being debt free [and they should be], they don’t even need to be concerned about their credit rating at all, because they should not be planning on using credit in the future once they get the debt paid off. My mortgage broker friends tell me the only way someone who wants a mortgage can qualify these days is to either have an excellent credit rating or no credit rating at all.

It’s great that your bank is more concerned about good customer service than playing games with consumers’ credit card interest rates and excessive late fees. My current bank is the same way, and I fired my last bank and switched years ago due to their lousy customer service and excessive fees for everything they could think of. I intentionally have not opted out of getting the “you have been approved” credit card invitations in the mail so I can keep my readers informed of the latest games the credit card companies have devised to hook consumers in.

While some business owners may try to minimize profits for tax reasons, I find that most business owners plow the money back into their businesses to maximize income potential. I certainly do. I could let thousands of dollars sit in my business savings account and pay taxes on it, or I could spend it on having the next foreign language translation of my software product programmed. I choose to pay for the software programming so I can sell more software by expanding into a new foreign market so my business can make more money down the road. That keeps my programmer employed, keeps more sales income flowing into my bank account and lessens my tax bill – a win for everyone except the IRS.

There are also new provisions that mandate an issuer to validate a consumer customer’s ability to pay. So the problem as I see it comes into play for a small business owner who does his or her best to minimize income by plowing it all back into the business. These new laws make it impossible for an issuer to override ability-to-pay qualification standards.

Some of these so-called protections will result in negative impact to consumers. My bank has never been an issuer that has taken advantage of customers by playing games with their rates or imposing excessive late fees. We used to be able to differentiate ourselves on our excellent customer service. We’ll do our best to continue providing great service, but the laws will restrict us in some ways. No temporary increases for customers who are stranded, no increases unless income qualifies.