In an earlier blog posting, I criticized CARD (Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act) legislation for excluding small businesses from the protections it affords to individual consumers. Those protections include banning the practice of retroactively raising rates on old balances. Now one major bank has decided to do what Congress did not. Bank of America has announced that it will extend the CARD Act protections to its two million small business customers. Specifically, BofA will provide at least 45 days’ advance notice of future interest rate changes, a minimum 25-day grace period between the end of the billing cycle and the payment due date and a one-page summary of the terms and conditions of the credit account, to bring transparency to rates, payment information and fees. In addition, BofA will apply payments made on small business card accounts to the portion of their balance with the highest interest rate. I am heartened to read this news and frankly wonder what took a major bank so long to take this initiative. Surreptitiously sneaking in fee hikes and reassessing past interest rates was no way to build market share and goodwill among customers. Now let’s see if the other banks follow suit.