Canadians Still Eager For Credit

Canadians are not moved or seem worried about the continuous low-interest rates, they are still ready and eager to have more credit available. In 2016, TransUnion study showed that active credit cards in the country went down by 800,000, nevertheless, the cards’ average balances went up. In the fourth quarter of last year, the total balances increased by 3.3 per cent unlike the year before, it averaged to $4,094 for each borrower, up 2.3 per cent and totalled to $94.2 billion.

Senior vice president of production innovation and analytics at TransUnion Canada, Chris Dias gave details saying; “The increase in card usage was universal across all consumer credit risk tiers, and as a result, some lenders appear to be increasing credit lines to their customers to capitalise on this loyalty effect. We may expect more lenders to evaluate increasing credit lines to cardholders in response to this higher demand.”

In total, the study disclosed that despite the 2 per cent fall in delinquency rate for non-mortgage credit. In Alberta, delinquencies climbed up to 7.5 per cent and Saskatchewan went up by 3.32 per cent, even though other provinces experienced a drop; Ontario with the biggest drop of 6.73 per cent. The consumer credit in Canada was sound as last year’s ending with an increase of 2.18 per cent in non-mortgage debt.