You ever wonder how credit card companies can offer cards to every 18-year-old and every person who has just filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy (yes, it happens every time)? This op-ed is one of the best explanations I’ve ever seen . . . and should make everyone scream at the Treasury Department’s suggestion that we bail out the industry. Excerpt:

The card industry’s business model is the heart of the problem and needs to change. Just as with subprime mortgages, the credit card business model creates a perverse incentive to lend indiscriminately and ignore delinquencies. Card issuers make money on every credit card transaction, regardless of whether the consumer ultimately pays a finance charge. The issuer receives around 2% of every transaction in a fee paid by the merchant (and passed on to all consumers in the form of higher prices). This fee is called the interchange fee. Card issuers will collect about $48 billion in interchange fees this year.

Because interchange is based on transaction volume, it creates an incentive for banks to issue as many cards as possible, regardless of the creditworthiness of the borrower. . . .

Banks have compounded this problem by shifting much of the loan risk to investors through securitization. When card issuers securitize credit card debt, they transform the credit card debt into a pool of assets used to pay off bonds. If the pool turns out not to be large enough, the bond investors take the loss. But if there’s a surplus, it goes to the card issuer.

While card issuers sell off most of the default risk, they keep any upside that comes from inflating their fees and rates. This is a heads I win, tails you lose situation and leads the banks to increase fees and interest rates on securitized debt. If the higher fees and rates cause more defaults, it is investors who bear the loss. If the higher fees result in more income, however, it is the card issuer, not the investors, who benefit.

In order to ensnare consumers in these fees, the card companies employ an ingenious system of billing tricks and traps. The hallmark of credit card pricing is obfuscation through disclosure. Card issuers have created enormously complex pricing structures, with multiple interest rates and fees. On top of this Byzantine structure, issuers then layer a filigree of abusive and deceptive billing practices, buried in reams of fine print.

Making the total cost of using a card utterly inscrutable allows issuers to play a game of three-card monte. Card issuers distract consumers from the total price of credit cards by emphasizing teaser interest rates and rewards programs. Meanwhile, issuers raise the back-end fees that consumers inevitably underestimate. Since the 1990s, overlimit fees have gone up over 115% and late fees over 160%. . . .

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