October 13, 2009
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News: Last Week's CC Weather Report
The clouds that formed three weeks ago have faithfully stayed with us. For the third week in a row, interest rates for "New Credit Card Offers" have continued to worsen. Having reached 12.64% from 12.62% the week before, the even in wider scope shows a steady climb from 12.35% back six months ago. These figures covering the national credit card index were measured by Credit Cards dot Com.
In addition to the "Overall" new credit card offers, further breakdown was provided. It's quite interesting to note that the "Business Credit Cards" category has fared quite well in the midst of the storm. Although higher than the week before (from 9.69% up to 9.80%), they have already been cut almost in half over the last six months when they were at 16.74%.
By far, the worst off over the last six months were new credit card offers" to the "Balance Transfer" (13.10%, up from 10.80%) and the "Bad Credit" (14.29%, up from 11.79%) categories. These two rises were significant enough to skew the overall average upward when, in fact, more then half of the 9 categories have fallen over six months.
These extremes should point out which way the credit card industry, at large, is heading. They're wooing business cards while shedding balance transfers and risky consumers. Only makes good sense. Many consumers have been shown unfit to handle credit cards at all. Businesses (in order to survive) have to be more circumspect. They must act responsibly.
As far as the balance transfers go, well, I believe they're coming after me. For over ten years now I've managed to maintain steady balances in the thousands of dollars while never paying any finance charges. I've been taking a free ride on their ticket. My free ride is almost over and I'll have to fork over $5,000 to pay off my $6,000-limit credit card account. This way my reputation is safe of never paying a dime for all my credit and my FICO score should rise again.