Does your credit card comply with new Fed rules?

Take THAT, bad guys!

The Federal Reserve is set to sweep in new rules for credit card companies that will make it harder for them to just up and raise interest rates on consumers. WalletPop has written about that outrage at length.

After years of light regulation, it seems somebody up there finally took notice of the horrendous way credit card companies treat their customers, and decided to take our side for once. The new, more stringent standards are the first significant change for the industry in more than a generation, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required.)

Want to find out how your credit card stacks up to these sweeping new regulations? Billshrink has a credit card user's "bill of rights," and lets you enter your credit card name to see how your card stands up to that criteria. Not too shockingly, there are currently NO credit card companies that protect you from arbitrary rate raising.

For the time being, anyway. Although the new regulations are due to be swept in today, they won't take effect until 2010.

industry officials have estimated the new rules could cost banks some $12 billion in annual revenue, according to the Journal. Expect them to figure out ways to wring at least that much out of us between now and when the rules go into effect.