The leaders of the nation's largest credit card companies have been invited to the White House next week to discuss the industry's practices, even as pressure mounts in Congress and elsewhere to clean up some of its most abusive conduct.

Some of the industry's most execrable excesses already have been targeted by the Federal Reserve Board and other federal agencies, which late last year adopted new rules for banks and other issuers to end "unfair and deceptive practices."

The rules prohibit companies from raising interest rates on existing balances unless a payment is more than 30 days late. In some cases, credit card companies have raised rates by a factor of five or more if payments were even a few days late. This also ends "universal default," when rates are raised on all of a customer's cards for a late payment on one.

They also ban the practice of applying payments in such a way that highest-interest rate debt is paid last, potentially ensuring an increasing unpaid balance even for a customer who makes no new charges and diligently makes payments. Issuers also will be prohibited from charging late fees without allowing sufficient time for payment.

All of this is to be welcomed. The problem is that the rules do not take effect until July 2010.

Two bills pending in Congress would codify most of the Fed's rules and some others, including banning the marketing of credit cards to minors and regulating approaches to those aged 18-21. Giving the new rules the force of law is important, but the most concrete result of the bills would be to get the reforms in place much sooner than 2010. Unfortunately, both have been amended at this point to make their effective dates about the same as that for the Fed's rules, thereby shortchanging consumers for many months. Congress should pass a credit card bill that ends unfair and deceptive practices as soon as possible.

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