The Federal Reserve on Monday introduced an online database listing the terms and conditions of more than 300 credit card issuers to help consumers find a card that best suits their personal finance needs.

But the database, mandated under the far-reaching credit card legislation signed by President Obama last May, contains only the raw text of card agreements, which are so densely worded that only the most dedicated customer, perhaps one with a legal degree, could glean value from them, several consumer advocates said.

Take, for example, this section from a PNC Bank card agreement: “We will calculate finance charges on cash advances by multiplying the ‘average daily balance of cash advances’ by the total number of days in the billing cycle, and multiplying the product by the daily periodic rate of finance charge then in effect.

“The daily periodic rate of finance charge for each billing cycle shall be a rate computed by adding a margin (‘Margin For Cash Advances’) to the value of the index and dividing by 365. The corresponding annual percentage rate will be the index plus the Margin For Cash Advances.”