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Professor Margaret Ryznar gave expert commentary on the new rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that altered the CARD Act of 2009 regarding the “ability-to-pay” clause.

The Act required banks to stop the practice of evaluating household income and personal debts when making credit card approval decisions. Instead, banks were to consider debts and liabilities on the individual level. The change was to ensure people could only get credit cards if they could afford the monthly payments. An unintended consequence of the Act was that it made it more difficult for stay-at-home parents to get access to credit. The CFPB changed the rule in April to allow credit card issuers to consider household income that stay-at-home parents share with a spouse when evaluating credit questions.

“Access to credit by stay-at-home parents and the soundness of the banking system are not mutually exclusive in a society such as ours, which most often views the married couple as a single economic unit,” Professor Ryznar said in the article. “The idea that they may be mutually exclusive arose only a few years ago, merely as a by-product of efforts to tighten young adults’ access to credit by limiting their reliance on their parents’ income.”

Professor Ryznar’s commentary appears in an article on Card Hub. Card Hub is a website independent of credit card companies that allows consumers to shop for credit cards that fit their needs.

Professor Ryznar joined the faculty in Fall 2012, and teaches income taxation of individuals, fiduciaries and business associations; trusts and estates; family law; international and comparative family law; and juvenile law. She edits the Family Law Prof Blog and is a contributor to the Huffington Post.