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Unconscionable Credit Card Interest Charging means Nine Examples Of Predatory Advertising provides details not limited to - * Example 1 - Unconscionable Conduct - St George Visa Card; and that if a Credit Cardholder did not pay the entire Closing Balance by the Payment Due Date, the Credit Cardholder was charged interest at often a Usurious Interest Rate of 20% circa - + on all its Previous Month's Purchases (from the date of each Purchase); and ++ forfeited its Interest Free Period entitlement for up to the subsequent two months, explained in Forfeit Interest Free Period And Pay Interest On Each Purchase From The Purchase Date. Therefore the Cardholder enjoyed no Interest Free Period for up to three months, even if s/he paid only $1 less than their Closing Balance or paid their Closing Balance one day after their Payment Due Date. When Credit Cards were first launched in Australia in the 1970s, interest was charged only on any unpaid part of the Closing Balance after the Payment Due Date. Over time, more and more 'cute' Credit Card Issuers began changing the 'fine print' in their Conditions of Use, until the majority of Credit Card Issuers charged interest on all Purchases from the date of each Purchase if the Credit Cardholder did not pay the entire Closing Balance by the Payment Due Date. Then some Credit Card Issuers started cancelling the Interest Free Period for the subsequent month or two months. These punitive interest cost measures were targeted at Credit Cardholder with poor Financial Literacy Capacity. In Aug 2005, the then chief executive of the Australian Bankers' Association, David Bell, denied the fees were penalties, and said customers could avoid them. "We always act ethically and in a law-abiding fashion," he said. Mr. Bell said: "There are many ways of checking the state of your account - ATM balance enquiries, telephone banking, the internet, asking at your branch and bank statements." The bankers' association has resisted calls for an inquiry into fee income. Mr. Bell said banks' costings were commercially sensitive and "every business in Australia has the right to keep certain information private". Former Qld Premier, and now Australian Bankers Association chief executive, Anna Bligh, has been chartered with lifting the credibility of 'inter alia' Credit Card Issuers, after her predecessors, David Bell and the long running, Steven Münchenberg, facilitated bank greed involving Unconscionable Conduct. ABC News article, Banks revamp code of practice in face of scandals, royal commission - (A). informed that the current CEO of the ABA, Anna Bligh, announced in late Dec 2017 that the ABA had just lodged a 'Banking Code of Practice' with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for approval; and (B). lists several changes that will be legally binding on all 'member banks' of the ABA which includes: "Customers only paying interest on what remains on a credit card and not the full amount of purchase if a loan is being paid down." Below is an extract from page 40 of Australian Banking Association Banking Code of Practice - Setting the standards of practice for banks, their staff and their representatives - 1 March 2020 Release:
The fact that the ABA made it mandatory in its recently lodged Banking Code of Practice that from 1 July 2019 its members charge interest on only any unpaid portion of the Closing Balance after the Payment Due Date is patent evidence that the previous long-running practice (explained above) was Unconscionable Conduct targeted at Credit Cardholder with poor Financial Literacy Capacity.
Hence, the ABA has ruled it mandatory that its members desist (B) above. The Writer has validated that St. George Bank has so ceased this practice because the St. George Credit Cardholder referred to in Example 1 of Labyrinth of ‘Concealed Spiders’ checked with St. George Bank.
++ above has to be similarly eradicated because it is a 'penalty' more generally suffered by Financially Uneducated And Vulnerable Credit Cardholders which is unlawful. The fact that the ABA made it mandatory in its 'Banking Code of Practice' that its members charge interest on only any unpaid portion of the Closing Balance after the Payment Due Date is patent evidence that the previous long-running practice (explained above) was Unconscionable Conduct targeted at Credit Cardholder with poor Financial Literacy Capacity. Alas, the ABA did not also 'rule out' cancelling the Interest Free Period for up to two months, if the Closing Balance was not paid 'in toto' by the Payment Due Date. See: Highest Interest Rate Credit Cards Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, acknowledges that "...unfair and predatory practices..." have existed with Credit Cards in Press Release "Protecting Aussies from predatory credit card practices" - 22 June 2017 |
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