How the Pew Trusts Aided Credit Card Reform

How the Pew Trusts Aided Credit Card Reform
By Jeff Gelles
The Philadelphia Inquirer
August 22, 2010

Each had played a role in its development - Krumme as a banker, and Roster as a prominent industry lawyer. Now, each saw that the business had turned into a trap for unwary consumers dragged down by billions of dollars in tricky fees and sky-high penalty interest rates. Each worried, as Krumme recalls, that lenders' practices "could get a lot of people in trouble and hurt the economy as well."

Yes, they surely did, and most of the damage came well before passage two years later of the Credit Card Act of 2009, whose last provisions take effect Sunday. The recent financial reform promises even bigger change for consumers: the launch of a new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, whose goal will be to ensure that new traps are nipped in the bud, not allowed to grow for years unchecked.

This is a good moment to consider a little-known chapter in the overhaul of the U.S. credit card industry: the role played by a Philadelphia institution, the Pew Charitable Trusts, which brought Roster, Krumme, and others together on the side of long-belated change.

>> Read more >>