Get ready to say your goodbyes to Orchard Bank credit cards. Capital One, which recently finalized its acquisition of HSBC’s U.S. credit card business, will soon stop accepting new applications for any of HSBC’s non-affinity credit cards, including those bearing the popular Orchard Bank brand name.

The Orchard Bank brand was developed after HSBC’s 2003 purchase of Household International, Inc. – which boasted more than 53 million loan and deposit account customers – brought the company a large sub-prime consumer demographic to which it could offer credit cards without much competition. It therefore figures that the people who are likely to be hit hardest by the discontinuance of Orchard Bank credit cards are those looking for low-cost options with which to build or rebuild their credit standing.

Is American Express willing to bet the farm on its digital payments platform, Serve? Probably not, but the company did roll out a FarmVille Prepaid Debit Card today that not only speaks to the growing role of prepaid cards in the post-Durbin Amendment environment, but will also serve as an important cog in building Serve into a bona fide rival to PayPal.

The card is the product of a joint partnership between American Express and Zynga, a company that offers a number of popular online social games – including Words With Friends, Draw Something, and FarmVille – that together draw more than 290 million active users on a monthly basis.

The FICO Score is the most popular credit score among lenders, and as you may know, we all actually have three of them. They are based on our credit reports at the nation’s three largest credit bureaus – Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Depending on the lending institution and the type of loan you’re applying for, anywhere from one to all three of these scores may be used to make underwriting decisions. That’s what makes our inability to access Experian FICO scores so troubling.

That’s right, we as consumers can’t get our hands on Experian FICO Scores, despite the fact that they’re based on our financial data. Do you know why we can’t get them? Because the credit reporting and scoring system in the United States is flawed and riddled with conflicts of interest that enable credit bureaus to put their business agendas ahead of basic consumer rights, like accessing our own data, even for a fee.

VISA and MasterCard are after your wallet.

No, they don’t want to steal it or anything like that, but they do want to put it online. Each last week announced the launch of a digital wallet, adding another page to the burgeoning tale of contactless payment technology in the United States.

It seems like Bank of America really meant that advertising tagline, “Think What We Can Do For You.” The bank on May 8, 2012 launched three new travel rewards credit cards – the BankAmericard Travel Rewards Credit Card, the BankAmericard Privileges with Travel Rewards Credit Card, and the WorldPoints Travel Rewards for Business Visa Credit Card – ostensibly to fulfill the desire of consumers who want easy-to-use travel rewards.

“Our customers told us they wanted a travel card that gave them the flexibility to use points for travel-related expenses without a lot of hoops to jump through,” said Susan Faulkner, an executive with Bank of America’s Consumer and Small Business Products division, in a statement. “With these new travel cards, customers can earn reward points faster and can choose any airline, hotel or other travel provider for their travel plans.”

The Durbin Amendment dominoes continue to fall. Following the disappearance of debit card rewards and the rise of bank account fees – two of the main compensatory moves predicted for banks after the Federal Reserve’s debit card interchange fee cap cost them roughly $8 billion in revenue annually – major banks are stepping up their prepaid card game, as expected. Chase, on May 8, 2012, became the latest banking power to make a big splash in the prepaid card space, launching its first prepaid card, dubbed the Chase Liquid Card.

“We are working hard to deliver great service to all of our customers, and to create a wide range of products that meet many different needs,” said Todd Maclin, CEO of Chase Consumer and Business Banking, in a press release announcing the new product’s launch. “Chase Liquid will be a terrific option for customers who want a prepaid card and also want the security and convenience of Chase. Chase Liquid’s affordability and transparency will set a new industry standard for prepaid products.”

The state of New Jersey won’t make you pump your own gas, but it just might use your gift card balances to fund public works programs and avoid tax increases under a controversial law passed by the state legislature in 2010 that is soon to be implemented.

The law will require merchants to collect the zip codes of consumers who purchase gift cards so that the state can appropriate unused balances after two years of dormancy. The funds, according to the New Jersey Treasury Department, will then “be made available for the benefit of all New Jerseyans to prevent tax increases and service cutbacks.”

On May 1, 2012, Capital One completed its acquisition of the majority of HSBC’s United States credit card business for a reported $2.6 billion, adding definitiveness to a sale that caused a stir among consumers following its tentative announcement in August 2011.

The deal was originally announced less than two months after Capital One, currently the ninth largest bank in the United States by total assets, bought ING’s American online banking division, ING Direct USA, for $8.9 billion. This transaction itself drew consumer criticism over concerns that fees would rise and customer service would worsen under new ownership, and the HSBC sale only served to fan these fires with worries that Capital One was another “too big to fail” banking institution in the making.

Prepaid debit cards have seemingly burst onto the scene in recent years, and while much of the attention paid them has been a result of the rash of new celebrity endorsers and the unintended consequences of the contentious Durbin Amendment, deeper psychological factors are also in play, according to the findings of a focus group conducted by The Pew Charitable Trusts Health Group.

To provide a bit of context, prepaid debit card usage rose more than 20% from 2006 to 2009, according to Federal Reserve data, which made prepaid cards the fastest growing electronic payment method over that time period. Their rise has since accelerated even more, though. According to the research firm the Mercator Advisory Group, United States consumers loaded $28.6 billion onto prepaid cards in 2009, and this number is expected to reach a whopping $201.9 billion by 2013. That’s a growth rate of roughly 606% in just four years, and even if this prediction doesn’t pan out, it’s clear that prepaid cards are in the midst of a stratospheric rise.

Who wants deals on daily deals, discounts on already-discounted goods and services? Well, that’s in a sense what LivingSocial and Chase are offering with the new LivingSocial Rewards Credit Card.

In addition to a $30 initial bonus, the LivingSocial Card offers 5 points per dollar spent on LivingSocial purchases, 3 points per dollar on dining, and one point per dollar on everything else. For every 100 points cardholders accrue, they obtain one Deal Buck, which is just a fancy way of saying that points are redeemable at a 1% rate and only for LivingSocial purchases.

How low can Chase go? Such is the question being asked by those following the recent flurry of product changes that Chase, the largest credit card issuer in the United States, has made of late. Following the company’s surprising resurrection of its free balance transfer credit card offer a few months ago, Chase this past week upped the ante by extending the 0% introductory periods on three of its most popular cards: the Chase Freedom Visa and the Ink Cash and Ink Classic business cards.

The Chase Freedom Visa Credit Card, which offers a $100 initial bonus after one spends $500 in the first three months of being a cardholder as well as 5% cash back on spending categories that rotate on a quarterly basis, used to offer 0% on both purchases and balance transfers, but not for that long. Consumers got six months without interest on new purchases and 12 months on transferred balances.

Have you recently received a credit card offer that requires you to pay a fee before your account is even open? Whether you have yet or not, you better prepare yourself because such offers will be much more in evidence following the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s April 12th proposal of a rule that will explicitly exclude such fees from the first-year fee limit imposed by the 2009 personal finance reform law, the CARD Act.

This limit, which caps allowable first-year fees at 25% of a card’s credit line, has been the subject of controversy ever since the CARD Act took effect. It has been circumvented by issuers who argued that fees assessed before account opening did not count toward the cap, adjusted by regulators who felt otherwise, scrutinized in court, and with the CFPB’s recent proposal, made the subject of public debate. But forget all that for now; let’s first consider the practical effect of these pre-account fees.

Card Hub’s 2011 Small Business Credit Card Study examined the flawed exclusion of business credit cards from CARD Act protection given the distinct similarities between business and consumer credit cards in terms of both personal liability and credit reporting practices.  It further explored the extent to which major credit card companies proactively applied CARD Act protections to their business credit cards as a result of this curious, somewhat inexcusable oversight on the part of legislators.

The 2012 Small Business Credit Card Study builds upon these findings, exploring changes made by issuers over the last 12 months in regards to business credit card liability, credit reporting, and CARD Act protection.

Key Findings:

• Regular APRs rose relative to last year for most general-consumer credit cards – Relative increases between 4.2% and 5.7% were observed among general-consumer credit cards for excellent, good, and fair credit
• For business, student and secured credit cards, regular APRs stayed virtually unchanged relative to last year – Compared to last quarter, however, secured card interest rates declined almost 9%.
• 0% introductory terms are over 27% longer than in Q1 2011 – Zero percent rates for new purchases are nearly 28% longer than last year, and 0% balance transfer terms are around 36% longer.  Intoductory terms now range from 6 to 18 months, depending on the card and type of transaction.  It appears that issuers are willing to sacrifice interest revenue in the early stages of the customer life cycle in the hopes of attracting more new customers and recouping this revenue later through higher regular APRs.
• Foreign exchange fees continue their decline – More and more consumers appear to be catching on to these costly fees, and their interest in avoiding them is leading issuers to eliminate or decrease charges for foreign transactions.
• Balance transfer fees rose -  With 0% introductory periods getting longer and longer, issuers are once again increasing transfer fees to compensate for lost finance charges and are therefore reversing the trend of recent declines.
• Initial rewards bonuses increased significantly – The average cash back initial bonus is over 90% higher relative to last year, while not much different than last quarter.  Points and miles bonuses are up nearly 20% compared to last year and 9% relative to last quarter.
• Cash back rewards are 60% more lucrative – While the card with the best cash back rate across all purchases offered only 1.25% in Q1 2011, base rates as high as 2% are now available.

Please find a breakdown of pertinent credit card data for Q1 2012 below.

Credit card mega-issuer JP Morgan Chase & Co. has recently come under fire due to allegations of impropriety relating to the company’s debt collection practices. Numerous whistleblowers, including former high-ranking Chase executives, have told American Banker that the company engaged in reckless and even fraudulent practices in order to overstate past-due debt and thereby boost revenue. Chase made $1.8 billion off overdue debt in 2009 alone, according to the publication.

While Chase officials have been mum on the subject, reports have it that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has been investigating the matter, which also calls into question billions of dollars in past-due debt already collected, countless court judgments, and the bank’s motives to abruptly drop lawsuits against indebted consumers in five states last spring.

With the 2012 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament officially underway, we at Card Hub have come down with full-fledged March Madness. And in the spirit of Bracketology, we put the best credit cards on the market to the test, ranking the top seeds and having them square off until a final champion was crowned and “One Shining Moment” could be played.

Like the real NCAA Tourney, teams involved in Card Hub’s March Madness Matchup were placed into four regions. But instead of the East, West, South and Midwest, we broke things down by primary card feature: Initial Rewards Bonus, Ongoing Rewards, 0% Purchase APR and 0% Balance Transfer APR. What’s more, instead of including 68 or even 64 teams in our tournament, we decided to be more selective and invite only 32 “teams” to the Big Dance. We also limited each issuer to one entry per region because as we all know, March Madness is as much about the Cinderella story as it is power conference selections, and with over 1,000 credit card offers in the running, diversity is key.

Net Result of Consumer Credit Card Debt Q1 2009 – Q4 2011

Net Result in Debt Load – Green indicates that consumers decreased their debt relative to the previous quarter. Red indicates they increased their debt relative to the previous quarter.

A chargeback is when a merchant refunds a customer after a customer successfully disputes a charge made to their credit card. Although all major credit card networks and issuers have a chargeback policy in place, the methods and standards that a customer must meet when seeking a chargeback varies among credit institutions.

Therefore, CardHub.com conducted its 2012 Chargeback Policy Report to determine the key information needed in order for a consumer to successfully dispute charges made to their credit cards. To conduct the report, CardHub.com contacted the 4 major credit card networks and the 10 largest U.S. credit card issuers for information on how they would proceed in common chargeback scenarios, including when a merchant is unresponsive to a costumer’s dispute, when a customer receives the wrong item, and when a customer disputes an inflated tip with and without supporting documentation, among others.

During the course of evaluating over 1,000 credit card offers, two fees in particular stuck out to us at Card Hub as being particularly alarming for consumers, and interestingly enough, they are both charged by the same issuer: First Premier Bank. More specifically, these fees are:

• 25% Credit Limit Increase Fee: First Premier charges customers who ask for and receive a credit line increase a fee equal to 25% of the amount by which their credit limit rose. For instance, a customer receiving a $200 credit limit increase will get charged a $50 fee. As if being assessed an unusual fee is not enough, First Premier’s fine print dictates that this fee will not be refunded unless the customer notifies the bank that they do not wish to keep the higher limit within 30 days of the date of the periodic statement on which it appears.

Card Hub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou commented on this alarming fee: “I think the most concerning thing about this fee is that while First Premier only gives customers credit limit increases upon request and clearly discloses the fee before assessing it, according to CNN, the fine print of their card agreement gives them the right to both grant credit limit increases and charge the corresponding fee unsolicited. When you consider this together with the fact that customers have a limited window to request a reversal of their limit increase, First Premier could very well pull a fast one.”

Roses are red, violets are blue, Valentine’s Day can be expensive, but your credit card can help you! According to the National Retail Federation, not only are consumers expected to spend an unprecedented $17.6 billion on Valentine’s gifts this year, but also the $126.03 that each lovesick reveler is expected to shell out represents an 8.5% increase over last year.

Given that the 10 largest credit card issuers control nearly 80% of the market, any special Valentine’s Day promotions they offer would certainly help people get the most out of the money they spend in the name of love this year. Card Hub surveyed these issuers to find out whether there will be any such promotions, and you can find a list of the identified deals below: