During a meeting with consumer advocates in Washington in July 2010, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. lauded the Obama administration’s progress on reforms it had long sought while offering pointed words about the practices of lenders and banks.

“Credit-card companies,” Mr. Biden said, “can’t continue to trap consumers with hidden fees or retroactive rate increases.”

Not mentioned was Mr. Biden’s own history with the financial services industry, an economic power in his home state of Delaware, or the critics who saw him as too close to credit-card companies in more than three decades in the Senate.

Read the article “Banking Ties Could Hurt Joe Biden in Race With Populist Overtone” on nytimes.com.