Believe it or not, American consumers could be up to their eyeballs in $1 trillion of revolving debt by the end of this year. Consumer revolving credit continued its upward push in July as Americans tacked on nearly $4 billion in net new debt, mostly credit card debt, after adding about $3 billion in the prior month. Revolving consumer credit has now reached a record $969.9 billion and is growing by 4.8% per annum. Based on revised figures, revolving debt rose by 3.5% in June after growing by 7.1% in May. According to data released by the Federal Reserve, total revolving credit has expanded by about $70 billion over the past twelve months. Bank credit card debt (excluding store and gas credit cards) at the end of the second quarter was about $825 billion or roughly 85% of total revolving credit, according to CardData (www.carddata.com). Store and gas credit cards had about $109 billion in outstandings at year-end 2007. At the end of July, Americans were $2587 billion in debt, excluding home mortgages.
REVOLVING CREDIT HISTORICAL ($billions)
Jul 08 Jun 08 May 08 Apr 08 Mar 08 Feb 08
GRWTH: 4.8% 3.5 7.1 0.3 7.7 5.3
$OWED: $969.9 966.0 963.2 956.8 957.5 950.7
Source: Federal Reserve; revised figures as of 9/8/08;
For complete historical data, visit CardData (www.carddata.com)
