May 07, 2010
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News: Credit Card Offerings On The Rise
A recent report by the Synovate warns credit card consumers to be prudent in reviewing the terms and conditions of new card contracts. Synovate is a global research firm that creates innovative methods in data collection and turns them into valuable data reports to assist businesses in making strategic decisions. The company's direct mail tracking service, the Mail Monitor report indicates that after surviving one of the country's worse recessions, credit card companies have begun to bounce back. The report indicates that in 2009 card offers took a significant decline as mail offers spiraled to the lowest since 1993. Americans received 372.4 million credit card offers that year. However, the report showed that during first quarter 2010, American households received 481.3 million card offers, a 29 percent increase.
According to the Mail Monitor, credit card offers began increasing in the fourth quarter of 2009 and has continued into the first quarter 2010. Anuj Shahani, Director of Competitive Tracking Services for Synovate's Financial Services said that the company expects the trend to continue throughout 2010. Synovate reported that Chase led was the leader in mailing credit card offers with Capital One not far behind. No surprise because Capital One made the announcement after giving first quarter 2010 results that the company's intentions were to re-enter the sub-prime credit market. The bank doubled its mailings during that quarter.
In an even bolder move, HSBC, the bank that said it would exit the credit card industry doubled its mail credit offerings during the first quarter 2010 over the previous 4th quarter of 2009 and tripled it from the same period 2009. Not only did Americans receive more credit offers, according to Synovate, the offers have been greatly improved. At the guts of most offers was an introductory purchase APR. The report showed that 65 percent of the new offers in first quarter 2010 included a premium APR compared to only 58 percent during fourth quarter 2009. In terms of balance transfer offers, in first quarter 2010 only 54 percent included an introductory rate whereas 66 percent the same time last year has a balance transfer offer. Just one third of the offers had an annual fee including sub-prime offers which typically carry such fees.