Apparently, the usual fee-gouging by credit card issuers has gotten so egregious that the Federal Reserve’s push for stricter controls over what customers have to pay for carrying balances might actually have a chance of becoming reality. In response, the banks are pulling back a bit on their usual nickel-and-diming, and Chaz has already seen material benefit, including the abolition of the infamous two-cycle billing method by two of his plastic-pushers.

But he does detect an ulterior motive:

This is not to say that they’re turning into the Good Guys all of a sudden; I have to figure that they’ll point to little incremental changes like this and tell the Fed, “See? We really don’t need any new regulations.”

Amazing what the mere threat of tighter regulations can accomplish, especially when a practical license to print money is threatened.