Card delinquency rates have fallen as the economy has stabilized, and this has allowed card issuers to pass along savings to the strongest customers, he said.
Other changes proposed by the Kerry campaign would require lenders to forgo penalty charges when they allowed card holders to go beyond their borrowing caps.
Sally Smith Clemens, product manager with the Olympus consumer products group, said that the xD-Picture Card technology would eventually allow cards to store up to 8 gigabytes.
But other schools, like Boston College and Northeastern University, do not allow card companies on campus.
The House bill is preferable because it allows card sponsors to "use some of these dollars for administrative costs and profits," the administration told Congress.
Some of the cards are being tested in trials with various bank customers, according to Mr. Mullen, and Citibank is already offering a version of the technology that allows card owners to choose between paying with credit or rewards points.
He said that while federal pre-emption might apply to laws passed by Congress, it should not apply to the labor board's decision allowing card check to be used in some unionization campaigns.
For instance, the S.E.I.U. has pressed several banks and private equity firms to agree to allow card check — a process that makes unionization easier — at companies in which they own stakes.
Some West Virginian politicians are also threatening to allow card and dice-table gaming near the Maryland border.Nevertheless Maryland's new governor, Martin O'Malley, estimates that by 2012 the state could raise $550m a year by authorising 15,000 racetrack slots.
While the attacks targeted only the public web-sites of these companies – rather than the underlying infrastructure that allows card transactions to be processed – such subtleties are likely to get lost in the public debate.
The program allows card members to earn one point for every dollar charged on enrolled American Express cards.
