To determine the Periodic Rate Finance Charges, we multiply each Balance Subject to Finance Charge by its applicable Daily Periodic Rate and that result by the number of days in the billing cycle. To determine the total Periodic Rate Finance Charge for the billing cycle, we add the Periodic Rate Finance Charges together. Each Daily Periodic Rate is calculated by dividing its corresponding Annual Percentage Rate by 365.

Sounds like a piece of cake, right?

Not really according to a new report:

An international research study confirms that, even if you managed to stay awake during high school math, you have precious little chance of understanding your credit card statement.

It found that credit card statements issued by most banks and other card issuers around the world are "virtually incomprehensible." The vast majority of credit card users cannot determine how much credit they used, how long it will take to repay their debt or how much interest they are racking up.

Issuer's play hide-and-seek with payment info:

If you suspect that credit card issuers are beginning to play hide-and-seek with your payment due date and total balance, you are not alone. Most customers had trouble finding even that most fundamental of information on their statements.

No country's statements pass the test:

Sless said he was appalled by the result: Not a single statement passed the test. Meanwhile, consumers around the world are trying to stay afloat in a $40 trillion ocean of credit card debt. "To be easily understood, people should be able to find at least 90 percent of what they are looking for on a credit card statement and then use appropriately 90 percent of what they find," Sless said. "The only information that can be found reliably on the statements we tested is the name of the organization sending it and the person it is addressed to. Everything else falls well below an acceptable level."

Asked about the possibility of intention deception, Sless acknowledged that some "naughtiness" was involved, but he said the problem seemed to be one of accretion -- an issuer slips in one new way of computing a finance charge, then another, then another. Before you know it, you have eyeball-cracking blocks of explanatory text that explain ... nothing.

"Under the cover of very poor design, they've been able to hide things," including the nuts and bolts of how interest rates accrue, he said. "What starts out as very poor design ends up being very convenient for them."

He said he doubts that the new statements required by federal regulations will solve the problem.


Read More Statistics Here:
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-ca...sible-1276.php