Candidates of both parties are advocating caps on credit card interest rates as they campaign for next week’s midterm elections, Bloomberg reported Saturday (Oct. 31).
These candidates aim to capitalize on voter frustration with credit card interest rates that are nearly double what they were a decade ago, and a credit card delinquency rate that is near the highest level since 2011, according to the report.
Seventy-two percent of voters surveyed in May, including Democrats, Republicans and independents, said they support capping credit card interest rates at 10% for a year, the report said, citing data from the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll.
The report highlighted Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, Florida Democrat Angie Nixon and Republican House incumbent Anna Paulina Luna, saying each has supported capping the rates set by credit card companies.
It added that President Donald Trump praised Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, saying the senator was fighting “predatory” lenders.
We’d love to be your preferred source for news.
Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks!
Trump pitched a 10% credit card rate cap during the 2024 presidential race and revived the idea of such a cap in early 2026, but the White House has since backed away from the idea, the report said.
In addition, bills introduced by bipartisan groups of lawmakers call for caps as well as other measures such as lower swipe fees, the report said.
Banks have widely condemned proposals to cap credit card interest rates, saying a cap would force them to reduce credit access to Americans who need it most, per the report.
Reuters reported in January that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told a World Economic Forum meeting that a 10% credit card interest rate cap would be catastrophic for most consumers in the United States.
“It would remove credit from 80% of Americans, and that is their backup credit,” Dimon said, per the report.
Citi’s CFO Gonzalo Luchetti who was the bank’s head of U.S. personal banking at the time, said in February that a 10% cap on credit card interest rates would harm access to credit as well as consumer spending in several sectors of the economy.
Luchetti said that a cap “would have massive ripple effects through retail industry.”
Add as Preferred Source
