Emerging Industry Overview: Credit Card Issuing
Industry Snapshot
As of March 2009, U.S. revolving consumer debt, almost entirely constituting credit card debt, was about $950 billion. Under traditional economic conditions, this would not be astounding or alarming. However, following the economic downturn of 2008 into 2009, along with double-digit unemployment, rising bankruptcies, and government loans to the banking and auto industries, such a statistic seemed worrisome at best. According to a report before the U.S. Congress' Joint Economic Committee in May 2009, in the fourth quarter of 2008, 13.9 percent of consumer disposable income went to service credit card debt....