Almost every American, in addition to the deals for regular consumer credit cards, also get mailers about small business credit cards in hundreds each month. These are cards that are given out to proprietors and other small business owners to meet their business expenses. However, unlike consumer credit cards, the credit cards under this segment are not covered under the regulations of the CARD Act.

Due to the lack of this protection, card holders are at the mercy of the credit card issuers who can increase the interest rates on this card and the late payment charges without prior notice. The CARD Act that was implemented in 2009 was specifically designed to protect consumer credit cards. In the process, the business credit cards got sidelined. The owner of the small business is responsible for all the transactions on the credit cards and this can have a significant impact on his credit history.

The director of the Safe Credit Card Project run by Pew, Nick Bourke, said that Pew is earnestly requesting the makers of the policy to leverage the regulations of the CARD Act to cover business cards as well. As a part of this project, disclosure documents from twelve major credit card lenders in the country were analyzed. 85% of the total business credit card segment comes under the direct control of these 12 credit card lenders.

While some banks such as Capital One and the Bank of America have taken initiatives to extend the protections of the CARD Act to small business credit cards as well, there are many others that have still not given this aspect a thought.