ARLINGTON, Va.—Total consumer credit rose 11.3%, at a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate, in February and is up 6.5% compared to a year ago.
Non-revolving credit, such as auto and education loans rose 8.4% in February, and revolving credit, primarily credit cards, rose 20.7% and is up 9.7% compared to February 2021.
“Consumer credit growth skyrocketed by over $41 billion in February, far exceeding expectations,” said NAFCU Chief Economist and Vice President of Research Curt Long. “According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s February Survey of Consumer Expectations, respondents reported a perception that credit is harder to access than a year ago and will continue to be difficult moving forward.
"Nevertheless, card balances shot up to 20.7% growth on an annualized basis during the month," added Long.
In addition, the data show total consumer credit for credit unions rose 1.0%, on a seasonally adjusted basis, in February, compared to a 0.1% gain for banks and 0.7% increase for financial companies. From a year prior, total consumer credit at credit unions rose6.4% while banks experienced a 10.4% gain and financial companies rose 5.0%.
CU Share Flat, Bank Share Rises
Over the past 12 months, credit unions’ share of the market remained at 12.1%. Banks’ share rose by 1.5 percentage points to 40.8%, and financial companies' share fell by 0.2 percentage points to 13.1%, according to the data.
“NAFCU expects that high prices and rising auto sales will produce strong growth in consumer credit through the rest of the year,” concluded Long.
Make Sure You’re Not Missing It!
Don’t forget to check your Spam/Junk email folder if you haven’t been receiving your free, popular and daily CUToday.info news headlines email.
And if you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time.
CUToday.info has received very positive response from readers following the move to an improved provider of the daily headlines, but many also noted they did need to go to their Spam/Junk folder and mark it as safe.
The new email solution has not only improved every reader’s delivery experience, but it also features a fresh, new format that is easy to read, especially on mobile devices.
Please note and/or make your IT department or email administrator aware the emails will be coming from the domains CUTodayinfo.com and CUTodayinfoReply.com.