Bessent: not unreasonable to have discussion on practices of credit card companies

WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday it was not unreasonable to have a discussion on the practices of credit card companies and a number of things can be considered.

“I think that there are a lot of things that we can look at with the credit cards in terms of their practices, in terms of their behaviors, and we’ll see where that goes,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC from the World Economic Forum in Davos.

President Donald Trump last week called for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a longtime consumer financial protection advocate, said the Republican president reached out to discuss the idea.

“I would say that in terms of direction, that the president the administration, agree with many of Senator Warren’s policies that the poorest members of society shouldn’t pay the most,” Bessent said. “But she wants to control credit. She wants to put in more regulation” that he said led to the failure of small and community banks.

That has led to the opposite result, Bessent said.

“But again, I think it is not unreasonable to have a discussion on the practices of these credit card companies,” Bessent added.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Louise Heavens)