Consumer Borrowing Rate At 10-Month Low

The pace of consumer borrowing in the United States slowed to its lowest reading in 10 months, according to numbers released by the Federal Reserve. The research gathered by the United States central bank does not include debt which has real property as collateral, such as home equity lines of credit or mortgages, for example.

Bloomberg reported Friday (Jan. 8) that numbers showed $14 billion growth in total credit outstanding in November, with a marked decrease in the $15.6 billion additions seen in the prior month, and non-revolving loans, which span items such as automobiles and college tuition, saw the slowest gains since the second month of 2012.

Speaking to the economy at large, the continued growth in jobs has given confidence enough to carry debt tied to credit cards, specifically holiday gift buying. Big ticket items spurring loans that are relatively much larger, such as those used to finance automobiles, may have slipped a bit in December, reported the newswire. That might not be surprising, at least for December, given the fact that the previous three months had shown auto sales of more than 18 million.

Delving a bit into the data for November, non-revolving loans jumped $8.3 billion in November, which was lower than the $15.5 billion growth seen in October. The federal lending tally was up by $2 billion month over month, tied mostly to educational loans. That was the smallest gain since February.

Revolving debt, which is a classification that includes credit cards, was up $5.7 billion in November.

[bctt tweet=”Revolving debt, which is a classification that includes credit cards, was up $5.7 billion in November.”]

The $14 billion month-to-month rise across all debt was lower than the $18 billion consensus projection that two dozen economists offered up to Bloomberg, the newswire said.