Always Be Wary of Unregulated Credit Cards  

Credit cards that are used by consumers for business use could still be liable to sudden and unannounced interest rate hikes, harsh penalties and sky high fees. All that despite the recent introduction of credit card regulations that were introduced last year to stop things like this from happening in the business credit card market. The big news is that it is still very much going on today.  

The result of this is that many consumers are not aware what they are letting themselves in for, especially if they haven’t read and re-read every single word of the small print that comes with the initial credit card application. For it’s already too late for a lot of consumers who are told that it’s “nothing personal” by many credit card suppliers, it’s “only business”. 

The credit card regulations that have been introduced in the last 12 months have failed to apply to credit cards that are for commercial or business use. And whilst they have been considered a huge success for enabling consumers to understand personal credit card agreements more thoroughly, the same cannot be said for their commercial counterparts.  

A recent study into business or commercial credit card practices said that many commercial consumers could still be at risk from high interest charges and late repayment fees. They went onto say that more commercial consumers could be victim to these expensive charges as just under 11 million business credit card offers are sent out to households throughout the country each month. 

The study went on to look at many of the country's leading banks and commented that nearly 90% of these banks were continuing with these practices, that many consumers deem to be unfair. One example of these practices is hikes on interest rates on existing balances. Whilst this is not allowed on personnel credit cards, this is very much a big concern for many business users.   

It also went onto comment that it is many small businesses that are affected by these rates as many business credit card offers and applications are actually sent to people’s homes. This is also a major concern as many new start-up businesses are run from residential addresses during their first few years of trading.  

A spokesperson for the study went on to state that business consumers should also be covered under the same rules and regulations that cover personal credit card agreements. They also stated that it is up to regulatory bodies within the financial industry to reach an agreement between the credit card companies that is fair for all business consumers.  

Some people within the industry have also claimed that credit card companies could be trying to sift personal credit card consumers over to business cards, although this claim is nothing more than industry gossip and hearsay and is not substantiated in anyway. 

However, recent years has seen an increase in the number of business credit card offers and promotion packs that are being sent to people at their private residential address.