On February 8, state Attorneys General for North Carolina, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (State AGs) announced a $4.2 million settlement with a national bank to resolve allegations that it overcharged credit card interest for certain customers.
According to the settlement agreement, the State AGs conducted a joint investigation into whether, between 2011 and 2017, the bank failed to reevaluate and reduce annual percentage rates (APR) for certain consumer credit card accounts as required by the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act) and state law. As part of an internal compliance program, the bank self-identified issues in its APR practices and reported these issues to regulators. The bank also self-initiated remediation for such issues, providing over $335 million in restitution between 2017 and 2020 to approximately 1.75 million affected consumer accounts nationwide.
The State AGs allege that the same issues violated their respective state consumer protection laws by overcharging interest to consumers. The bank denies any violation of state law. To resolve these allegations, the bank will pay approximately $4.2 million to the State AGs, to be distributed to affected consumers.