In a press release yesterday, the National Retail Federation says it "has welcomed a ruling by the European Commission that hidden fees currently charged by MasterCard to process credit card transactions in Europe – similar to those that cost U.S. shoppers $40 billion annually – drive up costs for consumers in violation of EC rules and must be withdrawn within six months."

AP writers Rachel Konrad and Bob Porterfield write that "Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come." Their story is based upon a review of the SEC filings of securitized credit card debt "representing about 325 million individual accounts."

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