Credit unions maintained their record share of credit cards in February with balances rising twice as fast as other lenders.
The Fed’s G-19 Consumer Credit Report released Friday showed credit unions held $61.5 billion in credit card debt in February, up 7.4% from a year earlier.
Like autos and first mortgages, the trend has been for slower growth rates. The 12-month growth rate for card balances was about 10% last summer, and fell to 6.9% in January.
Credit unions’ share remained at its all-time record 6% of U.S. consumer credit card debt in February, unchanged from January and up from 5.8% in February 2018.
U.S. consumers held a total of $1.02 trillion in credit card debt in February, up 3.7% from a year earlier, based on non-seasonally adjusted figures. Consumers owed $909.7 billion to banks, up 5.4% from a year earlier, and $23.7 billion to finance companies, down 6.2%
The Fed measured total consumer credit at $4.01 trillion in February, up 5% from a year earlier. Credit union overall growth was again much higher, most of the difference stemming from credit union car loans.
While the fast pace of car loan portfolio increases have been slowing for all lenders, credit unions are still enjoying higher growth rates than banks.
Besides revolving debt, which is mostly credit cards, the G-19 also tracks non-revolving consumer loans, which for credit unions is mostly auto loans.
Credit unions held $409.8 billion in non-revolving debt in February, up 13.1% from a year earlier. CUNA reported last week that credit unions’ total car loans rose 9.6% to $374.4 billion in February.
Banks held $739.9 billion in non-revolving debt in February, up 4.2% from a year earlier. Banks’ share of non-revolving loans was 24.7% in February, compared with unchanged from January and down from 25% in February 2018.
Credit unions’ share of non-revolving loans was 13.7% in February, unchanged from January and up from 12.8% in February 2018.