NEW YORK—Demand for consumer credit in the U.S. has fallen dramatically during the COVID-19 crisis, with credit card applications falling to multiyear lows, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s survey of consumer expectations has found.
The proportion of households applying for any form of credit over the past 12 months fell by 11 percentage points, to 35%, between February and October.
But the drop in demand was most acute for new credit cards, where the application rate fell 10 points to just under 16%, the lowest level since the Fed began collecting application data in 2013, The Financial Times explained in its analysis.