NEC Hassett Says Banks Can Voluntarily Offer Credit Card To Citizens Amid Credit Card Interest Rate Battle

• Hassett said that the expectation is that the credit card rate cap won’t necessarily require legislation. 
• Hassett said that the administration has been talking with CEOs of many of the big banks.
• As per a CNBC report, a major credit card issuer and a bank lobbyist representing big lenders told CNBC that they haven’t yet had any discussions with the administration about the “Trump card” concept. 

White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said on Friday that major U.S. banks can voluntarily provide credit cards to underserved Americans as a means to address President Donald Trump’s affordability push. 

“They could potentially voluntarily provide for people who are in that sort of sweet spot of not having financial leverage very much because they don’t have access to credit, but they have enough income and stability in their lives so they’re worthy of credit,” he said in an interview to Fox Business. 

“Expectation is that it won’t necessarily require legislation, because there will be really great new ‘Trump cards’ presented for folks that are voluntarily provided by the banks,” he further added. 
The administration has been talking with “CEOs of many of the big banks who think that the President’s onto something,” Hassett said. 

A major credit card issuer and a bank lobbyist representing big lenders told CNBC that they haven’t yet had any discussions with the administration about the “Trump card” concept, the report said. 

Credit Card Rate Battle

U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he was looking to introduce a one-year 10% cap on credit card interest rates after pointing out that the current rates were exorbitantly high. 

U.S. President Donald Trump is now pushing a new front in the battle over consumer costs ahead of the midterm elections: the Credit Card Competition Act. Under the Credit Card Competition Act, the Federal Reserve would issue regulations within one year, ensuring that banks in four-party card systems with assets over $100 billion cannot restrict the number of networks on which an electronic credit transaction may be processed.

This has sprung worries across firms in the banking sector like JPMorgan, Citigroup as well as credit card firms like Mastercard and Visa. 

How Did Stocktwits Users React?

Retail sentiment on Visa and Mastercard trended in the ‘extremely bullish’ territory amid ‘extremely high’ message volume. 

Sentiment was ‘extremely bullish’ for JPMorgan, while it trended in ‘bullish’ territory for Citigroup. 
 

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