The credit card fees battle has been won! Or has it? Credit card bills now have 'honesty boxes'. Credit card providers are now required to spell out to us how much interest we're being charged and their fees for late payment, etc., have been limited to no more than £12 a time. In practice that means no less than £12 as well but it's still comfortably less than half what many credit cards used to charge.

But if the battle's been won, how come so many of us are still paying so much in late payment charges? One recent survey suggested that one in four of us have incurred a penalty fee on our credit cards in the past year, paying a cumulative total of some £230 million in charges. Thats a lot of £12 fees; more than 19 million of them in fact!

Are you among those who've paid these charges when you didn't need to? What you may have been aware of in the wake of that cap on charges are a couple of things happening. First, the interest rates on several credit cards went up and quite a number of the more attractive introductory offers disappeared. Second, the grace period between receiving your credit card bill and payment being required may seem a little shorter than it used to be... there's a reason for that, it probably is.

An expensive £12 penalty

But how serious is landing yourself with a £12 penalty payment? An irritant perhaps, you may think, but not the end of the world. It might not be the end of the world but it could be the end of your special rate period. Check the small print. Many credit card issuers reserve the right to bounce you out of a zero or low per cent deal into a standard charging deal if you break the terms and conditions. Making a late payment will break said terms and conditions. That £12 could turn into a very expensive penalty indeed.

The easy way to make sure your credit card bill is always paid on time is to set up a direct debit to make the minimum payment. This is not a recommendation to make only the minimum payment! If you only make the minimum payment it will take you much longer to clear your credit card debt and you'll end up paying far more in interest than is good for you. What it does mean is that you'll never be hit by a late payment charge ever again assuming there's money in your bank account to cover the bill.

Once your direct debit is in place you still need to make a payment when your credit card statement arrives - but simply pay whatever extra above and beyond the minimum that makes financial sense to you.

If your credit card bill comes at the 'wrong' time of the month for you - out of sync with your pay, you may be able to request a different statement date from your credit card provider which could make life easier for you.