Credit Card Glossary: Terms and Definitions
		Confused by credit card terms? CreditCards.com's glossary of credit card definitions will help. From account holder to Regulation Z, we have defined the most-common and most-confusing credit card terms.

Minimum payment

The minimum payment is the lowest amount of money that you are required to pay on your credit card statement each month. See your credit card "terms and conditions" document to see how your credit card's minimum payment is calculated. Until 2004, minimum payments were as low as 2 percent, which meant that any large balance could take decades to pay off, if only the minimum payment was made. Under pressure from federal banking regulators, card issuers have in recent years ramped up the required minimum payment.