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American's faced great financial crisis. As a nation, we struggle
with debt, and it keeps us from achieving a better life. Debt
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Fair Isaac: Average credit statistics
As a company that helps the nation's largest banks and financial
institutions assess credit risk, Fair Isaac is
often asked to describe the credit use of a typical consumer.
In researching the answer, we discovered that consumers vary immensely
in what types of credit they use and how they use it.
By analyzing a large sample of credit file information on people
who recently obtained new credit, Fair Isaac was able to survey
the panorama of credit activity across the U.S. The following
statistics reflect the average use of credit by today's consumers.
On average, today's (2003) consumer has a total of 11
credit obligations on record at a credit bureau. These
include credit cards (such as department store charge cards, gas
cards or bank cards) and installment loans (auto loans, mortgage
loans, student loans, etc.). Not included are savings and checking
accounts (typically not reported to a credit bureau). Of these
11 credit obligations, 7 are likely to be credit cards
and 4 are likely to be installment loans.
On average, today's consumers are paying their bills
on time. Fewer than 4 out of 10 have ever been reported
as 30 or more days late on a payment. Only 2 out of 10 have ever
been 60 or more days overdue on any credit obligation. 85% of
all consumers have never had a loan or account that was 90+ days
overdue, and less than 10% have ever had a loan or account closed
by the lender due to default.
About 48% of credit card holders carry a balance of less
than $1,000. About 10% are far less conservative
in their use of credit cards and have total card balances in excess
of $10,000. When we look at the total of all credit obligations
combined (except mortgage loans), 54% of consumers carry less
than $5,000 of debt. This includes all credit cards, lines of
credit, and loans-everything but mortgages. Nearly 30%
carry more than $10,000 of non-mortgage-related debt as reported
to the credit bureaus.
The typical consumer has access to $12,190 on all credit
cards combined. More than half of all people with credit
cards are using less than 30% of their total credit card limit.
Just over 1-in-8 are using 80% or more of their credit card limit.
The average consumer's oldest obligation is 13 years
old, indicating that he or she has been managing credit for some
time. In fact, we found that 1 out of 5 consumers who
recently applied for credit, had credit histories of 20 years
or longer. Only 1 in 20 consumers had credit histories shorter
than 2 years.
When someone applies for a loan or a new credit card account,
in short, any time one applies for credit and a lender requests
a copy of the credit report, this request is noted as an inquiry
in the applicant's credit file. The average consumer has
had only one inquiry on his or her accounts within the past year.
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