Honesty is the best policy that is something most of us have been brought up to believe. Maybe that is why we take what at face value and don’t read small print at the bottom of credit card applications.

Credit Card companies are now starting to clean up their act, and trying to give some of the trust that we gave them, back to us. Gone hopefully is the days of promised low rates ( like 0% balance transfers ) that are advertised, only when applying being told that you are only available to receive card on a higher rate.

But now with the new honesty boxes that are to be introduced, our knowledge of the workings of the card that we are buying into, will help us understand what the deal is that we are getting and of any hidden penalties that we may incur for late payment or going over our credit limit.

Related Articles

Credit Card User Profiles
Credit Cards To Be Made Easier To Understand
Credit Card Choices

The Association of Payment Clearing Services has said that the introduction of honesty boxes will include Monthly Interest Rates, APR, the length of the deal that is being offered or the 0% deal details. Also any summary will have to be put in with a bigger and better display than the current text that is hidden in the small print that causes severe headaches when trying to read it.

The reason for this change of policy is being done on the back of research done by the Office of Fair Trading, that came up with results that showed that even though 60% of the people asked, knew about the workings of their card, a surprising number of the same people surveyed knew little of the Interest Rates charged or the charges made when drawing cash from an ATM, 70% of us own a credit card and 40% have two or more and we don’t understand them, this should be of a grave matter of concern to us all.

A factor also that has been brought to our attention by (OFT) is that 20% of all advertising of was unlawful, by letting us see the goalposts and then moving them when we were about shoot.

With the need for cards becoming greater, this new policy of honesty by card issuers will make customers a little less frightened of trying to understand the jargon and sudden change of deal we are offered when we apply for a card, and with spending on reaching the £120 billion mark last year, hopefully we will have a clearer view with how we are dealing with our money.