Credit Cards: Statistics

Interesting facts about credit cards.

Plastic Share of Dollar Volume by Merchant Category
Top Ten Credit and Charge Card Issuers
Some Key Facts
Other

Top Ten Credit and Charge Card Issuers (Share of Industry Volume-%)

01- American Express (16%)
02- Citigroup (14%)
03- Bank One (11%)
04- MBNA America (9%)
05- Discover (7%)
06- J.P. Morgan Chase (6%)
07- Bank of America (4%)
08- Capital One Financial (4%)
09- U.S. Bancorp (3%)
10- Household (3%)

Some Key Facts

Credit Card Usage

Credit cards are used on a regular basis by more than 73% of American households, up from 16% in the 1970s.

How Much Card Holders Charge

In 1999, American consumers charged about $1.2 trillion on their credit cards - excluding chain store cards. By the year 2003, that number had grown by abut a third - to more than $1.5 trillion.

Credit Card Balances

According to Fair, Isaac & Co. (aka FICO), which tracks consumers' credit histories, about 10% of Americans have credit card balances that exceed $10,000. On the other hand, near half of the population carry balances of less than $1000. However, when combined, 30% of Americans carry more than $10,000 of non-mortgage related consumer debt.

How Many Credit Accounts?

According to FICO, the average consumer has 11 credit obligations - out of which 7 are credit cards, and 4 are installment loans, such as, auto, home or student loans.

Due Dates

According to FICO, fewer than 40% of consumers have ever been reported as 30 or more days late on a payment, and about 20% have ever been 60 or more days past due.

Self-Employed Credit Card Holders

By the year 2001, approximately 10.7 million self-employed households (that is, households headed by a self-employed person) has a credit card. These households accounted for about 86% of all self-employed households. They accounted for 20% of all credit card loans available and about 16% of all credit card loans outstanding.

Merchants that Accept Card Payments

In 1959, about 162,000 U.S. merchants took one or more payment cards. By 1971, this figure exceeded 820,000, implying an average annual growth rate of over 14%. By 2002, more than 5.3 million merchants tool payment cards. This implies an average annual growth rate of approximately 6.2% since 1971.

How Credit Cards Affect Savings

According to the Survey of Consumer Finances, conducted by the Federal Reserve, the 77.4 million households that carried credit cards reduced their checking account balances by 3.8 percentage points (as a percentage of total financial assets) and 11.2 million households with charge cards did the same by 1.5 percentage points. For households with credit cards (with median total financial assets of $42,583), this 3.8 percentage point decrease translates to roughly $125.2 billion in reduced checking account balances. For households with charge cards (with median total financial assets of $145,887), the 1.5 percentage point decline imlies a $24.5 billion reduction in balances. In average, the amount by which owning payment cards reduces checking account balances is $1,568 for credit card holders, and $619 for charge card holders.

Other

Physical Properties

A typical plastic card is:
- Weights about a fifth of an ounce.
- 3 3/8 long by 2 1/8 wide.

Credit Card Numbers

- The first digit of all Visa cards are 4.
- The first digit of all MasterCards are 5.
- The first digit of all Discover cards are 6.
- The first two digits of all American Express cards are 37.
- The first two digits of all Diner's Club and Carte Blanche cards are 38.
- For MasterCard and Visa, the remaining numbers signify the bank number and the account number.

Credit Card Ads

Celebrities who have appeared in TV ads of Visa, MasterCard, and Discover include: Tony Bennett (musician), Elton John (musicians), Bob Dole (politician), Hakeem Olajuwon (basketball star), Dion Sanders (football/baseball star), James Bond (by actor Pierce Brosnan), Gregory Hines (actor), John Lithgow (actor), Shirley MacLaine (actress), James Carville (political consultant), and Kurt Vonnegut (writer).

Mottos

- Have it the way you want it with Visa.
- There are some things money can't buy, for everything else there's Mastercard.
- Master the moment.
- The American Express card: Opens doors for you all over the world.
- It pays to Discover.
- Blue from American Express. A little piece of the future that got here early.
- Private Issue. The card you design to meet your changing needs.
- Visa. It's everywhere you want to be.