Most of the Government’s proposals for cracking down on the credit card industry’s less-than-lovely practices look reasonable. In particular, it is right to take an axe to the “order of payments” dodge, which means that customer repayments are applied to their cheapest debt first and the most expensive last.

This is the dark wheeze that lies at the heart of many credit card companies’ business models.

It allows them to offer a barrage of “teaser” introductory offers, confident they will be more than compensated as a big minority of customers are trapped paying off the highest-interest debt for years and sometimes decades.

It is fine for the nimble and affluent who play the system, but disastrous for the poor and financially ignorant who foot the bill. These shabby clauses in the fine print institutionalise a system that runs completely counter to what any honest banker would personally recommend to a client: which is to pay off your most expensive debts first.

It may be naive to expect banks to owe a duty of care to their customers. But as the next generation of bankers wonders how on earth it can start to win back public trust, ditching this ruse would be a very good start.

The proposal to stop banks lifting interest rates on debt already incurred is also hard to argue with.

If banks are banned from belatedly punishing borrowers who turn out to be higher risk than they thought, it may encourage them to lend more wisely in the first place.

The crackdown looks likely to hurt specialist card companies such as MBNA and Capital One who rely on teaser deals to win customers.

The established high street banks, whose credit card customers are much stickier, look less vulnerable.

There are some modest potential drawbacks to the other proposals, but careful drafting of the rules should avoid most difficulties.

Fortunately, ministers will be able to learn from President Obama, whose more advanced crackdown on the credit card industry begins in earnest in February.

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