It’s getting more expensive to own plastic: Many credit cards will now cost you money to maintain.

The number of solicitations for cards with annual fees increased to 27 percent in 2009 from just 9 percent in 2008, according to the financial research company Synovate.

This increase in card ownership – along with other similar customer service price hikes imposed by credit card companies – marks a preventative measure on behalf of lenders to recoup losses as the upcoming credit card regulations are set to go into effect February 2010.

President Obama signed this Credit Card Accountability Act last May; a bill is aimed to ban unfair rate increases, prevent unfair fee traps, offer protection for students and young people, as well as provide plain language disclosures.

Before the economic crunch, the credit card industry was raking in about $2.5 billion in profits a month. For the top ten credit card companies that comes to about $16 billion a year. And one-third of credit card company profits were coming from penalty and non-penalty fees alone, such as annual card ownership costs.

However, on an interesting note, credit card solicitations in general are down 67 percent as credit card companies are specifically targeting annual fee credit cards to just prime borrowers, hoping bigger benefits or rewards not found from no-fee cards will entice consumers.

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