With the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (CARD Act) of 2009 scheduled to go into effect February 22, there will be a few changes that the new regulation will bring forth for the borrowers.

While the CARD Act will mark the end of the so-called ‘double-cycle billing,’ whereby interest is charged on the already-repaid debt; it will also bring in a constraint on creditors under which they will not be allowed to raise interest rates on cards within the first year of the opening of their account.

Noting that the changes will make accessibility to credit increasingly difficult for consumers, Michole Mustard, of the San Francisco-based financial information firm Credit Karma, elaborated: “In the past, a credit card uses a balance from a previous billing cycle to calculate interest, and now going forward they're only going to be allowed to use balances on the current billing cycle.”

Further adding that the CARD Act will also handcuff lenders, Mustard said that since the banks will lose the ability to extend their credit facility to “consumers who are on the margin.”

Meanwhile, hailing the CARD Act changes, Margo Mitchell, president of an Oklahoma nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Service, said that it will prevent the bigwig credit card companies from raising their interest rates and lowering credit limits extensively.