Just Released: Recent Developments in Consumer Credit Card Borrowing

Campbell, Graham; Haughwout, Andrew F.; Lee, Donghoon; Scally, Joelle; Van der Klaauw, Wilbert

Discussion Paper

Just Released: Recent Developments in Consumer Credit Card Borrowing

Abstract: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data today released its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit for the second quarter of 2016. It showed that overall household debt increased modestly over the period, with subdued mortgage originations and moderate but continued increases in non-housing related credit—particularly auto loans and credit cards. The total outstanding credit card balance now stands at $729 billion, up $17 billion from the first quarter, but still well below the peak of $866 billion reached in the fourth quarter of 2008. Credit card delinquency rates have continued to improve since peaking in 2008. We have previously “looked under the hood” of auto loans, and in this post, we present analysis that provides new insight into credit card debt by examining trends in credit card issuance and usage. The Quarterly Report and the following analyses are based on data from the New York Fed’s Consumer Credit Panel, which is a nationally representative sample drawn from Equifax credit reports.

Keywords: credit cards; household finances;

JEL Classification: D1;