Card issuers may be looking harder for high risk credit card accounts to close. Having a credit card account closed; even if you do it yourself of your own free will, isn't a good thing for your credit score.

Here are the facts: Closing credit card accounts will never raise your credit score, nor will closing the credit card erase the card's history from your credit report, and certainly won't keep the history from being included in your credit score calculation. One thing that can indeed affect your score in a negative manner, is closing a credit card account.

To prevent your credit card company from closing your account, here's what you need to do:

Make payments on time. Delinquencies cost banks credit cards. With federal regulators proposing an end to some interest rate hikes, the card issuer wouldn't be able to make extra money by increasing your interest rate.

Make charges using the card. If you're not making money for the bank, they have no reason to keep you as a customer.

Read credit card statements for continuance issues and warnings about pending closures. The issuer might offer you the opportunity to keep the card account active. If so, jump on it.

It's not uncommon for card issuers to close customer cards that are inactive, but card holders may notice more closures in light of current problems.

As credit card delinquencies increase, closing inactive accounts helps companies reduce their exposure to high risk credit card members. Delinquencies have indeed become a growing problem: The rate in February of this year was 16% higher than the same month last year (4.5%). It's the highest it's been since March 2004.

Issuers close credit lines for several reasons, including:

• If the card holder is deemed unprofitable (such as the card sitting idle).
• If the account is delinquent, the issuer may close it to mitigate further high risk, or will raise the interest rate (unless prohibited by federal regulation).
• Tighter federal regulation and restrictions, as is currently proposed.

As mentioned earlier, even if you close your account; not the issuer, if another card issuer or lender reviewed your credit report they would only see that the account was closed - they wouldn't know for sure that you had closed it and may assume the issuer closed your account due to your bad credit management.

Also, the more open card accounts you have, the larger credit limit that is available and the better your credit utilization. Let's say you have one card you frequently use, and it has a $10,000 credit limit and you have a $5,000 balance. You have a second card that you never use, and it also has a $10,000 balance. Your available credit with both cards is $15,000. and your utilization is 25%. But, let's say you close the unused card. Now your available credit is only $5,000 and your utilization is 50%.

An issuer-closed credit card can ding your overall credit profile in another way. While it doesn't directly take the card cancellation into the score's calculation, Fair Isaac does make a note of it on your profile. And that notation can have an impact on how lenders perceive your credit risk, says credit expert Erica Sandberg. If lenders see your account was closed by the issuer, "they certainly may proceed with it as being negative," she says.

Don't lose your credit card. Use it, watch for closure notices in the mail or on your card statement, and call your issuer to express your desire to keep your card account active.