People walk past an ATM on a street in Manhattan, New York, the United States, April 23, 2009. President Obama said on Thursday he will push for a law to provide "strong and reliable" protections for millions of Americans who have credit cards after meeting with chief executives of credit-card leading industry. (Xinhua/Liu Xin)

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday that his administration will push for strong and reliable protections for credit card consumers.

"We want to preserve the credit card market but also want to do so in a way that eliminates some of the abuses and some of the problems that a lot of people are familiar with," Obama said.

"I think that there has to be strong and reliable protections for consumers," said the president after a meeting with executives of the credit-card industry.

Many U.S. consumers complained the high-fees of credit card companies. The House Wednesday approved a bill that would stop credit card issuers from imposing arbitrary interest rate increases and penalties, while halting certain billing practices.

(Xinhua News Agency April 23, 2009)