Thanks to a fairly strong holiday shopping season, revolving consumer credit crossed the $800 billion milestone in January. Americans added $5.4 billion to revolving credit during the first month of the new year. However, the figure is lower than last January, when $7.8 billion was added to revolving credit. The change further verifies that more consumers are paying credit card balances off in-full each month or increasing their monthly payment. The monthly payment rate is hovering at 18%, an all-time high. According to the Federal Reserve, Americans owed $801.4 billion in revolving credit at the end of January, compared to $796.0 billion for December. One-year ago revolving credit stood at approximately $753.2 billion. Bank credit card debt (excluding store and gas credit cards) at the end of the fourth quarter was $696.7 billion, or roughly 87% of total revolving credit, according to CardData (www.carddata.com). At the end of January, Americans were $2018.5 billion in debt, excluding home mortgages.
| REVOLVING CREDIT HISTORICAL ($billions) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 05 | Dec 04 | Nov 04 | Sep 04 | Jun 04 | Mar 04 | Dec 03 | |
| GRWTH: | 8.1% | 8.5 | 0.9 | 5.5 | 10.4 | -1.9 | 5.4 |
| $OWED: | $801.4 | 796.0 | 790.4 | 785.2 | 765.2 | 768.9 | 758.7 |
| Source: Federal Reserve; revised figures as of 3/07/05; | |||||||
| For complete historical data visit CardData (www.carddata.com) | |||||||