Which 2009 U.S. law restricted credit card interest rate increases and fees?

The Credit CARD Act of 2009 restricted credit card interest-rate increases and certain fees. Its formal name is the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009.

Signed by President Barack Obama in May 2009, the law amended the Truth in Lending Act and introduced stronger disclosure and fairness requirements for consumer credit cards. It generally limited retroactive interest-rate increases and required issuers to give advance notice of significant account changes.

The act also addressed payment allocation, billing statements, due dates, over-limit fees, and penalty pricing. For example, issuers had to provide clearer information about how long repayment could take and how much interest consumers might pay if they made only minimum payments. Many provisions took effect in 2010.

TILA is the broader federal lending-disclosure law, not the specific 2009 statute. The FCBA concerns billing-error protections, and Dodd-Frank was a wider financial-reform law enacted in 2010. Those laws may overlap in subject matter, but they are not the answer to this question.