Consumers grab credit cards for holiday shopping

Dive Brief:

• A third of credit cardholders anticipate accruing more debt during this holiday season, according to a Nov. 19 survey of 1,500 U.S. residents in October by CreditCards.com.
• More than half of the respondents (53%) carried a credit card balance, and 22% have $5,000, or more, in credit card debt, the card research and marketing firm said in a post about the results. Nonetheless, 96% of the cardholders with debt plan to spend on holiday purchases, the survey found.
• About a quarter of the respondents (28%) plan to spend between $500 and $999 on gifts, and 21% expect to spend between $1,000 and 1,999 on holiday gifts, the post said. Only 9% expect to spend $2,000 or more on presents, according to the survey.

Dive Insight:

The new survey offers a glimpse into U.S. consumers’ reliance on credit cards to fund their holiday spending. About half (48%) plan to reach the limit for spending on at least one card by the end of the holiday season, including those who are carrying a card balance, with 55% of the latter saying they will spend the maximum amount allowed on at least one card.

Though a sizable proportion of consumers plan to max out their bank issued cards, fewer are expecting to open store credit cards, the post said. Only one in six will open a new card account for holiday purchases, with a slightly higher share opening a store card account than a general card account, the survey results showed.

Of those opening a new card account, 65% said they want to take advantage of promotional rewards and cash back bonuses; 56% said they want to increase their available credit for seasonal expenses; and 21% want to open a card to consolidate their current debt, according to the survey results.

The survey findings follow on a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report last month that said U.S. credit card balances rose $24 billion during the third quarter over the year-earlier period to $1.17 trillion, according to the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data.

Alongside rising credit card balances, delinquencies are also climbing. In Q3, credit card delinquencies exceeded 4%, a level not seen since 2010, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s annual financial stability report. The Fed said the uptick was mainly due to non-prime borrowers, but credit card balances rose for prime and non-prime borrowers alike, the report showed.