Small Business Consulting Services - Tampa Bay » credit cards http://www.sbdctampabay.com Helping Small Businesses Start, Grow, & Succeed! Mon, 14 May 2012 20:56:41 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Consumers are paying down credit cards and buying less http://www.sbdctampabay.com/consumers-are-paying-down-credit-cards-and-buying-less http://www.sbdctampabay.com/consumers-are-paying-down-credit-cards-and-buying-less#comments Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:31:09 +0000 jparrish http://70.32.108.103/?p=2813 According to a CNNMoney.com article, Credit Card Debt at 8 year low, the amount of credit card debt consumers are carrying dropped to an eight-year low and delinquencies continued to decline in the second quarter as consumers looked to shore up their savings. This may explain why retail sales fell in the last three months by 0.9%.

Credit card debt fell 4.1% to an average $4,591 during the last quarter, according to credit bureau TransUnion. That marks the fifth straight quarter of declines and the first time credit card debt has dipped below $5,000 since the first quarter of 2002, according to TransUnion. “Consumers continue to pay down their credit cards in response to economic uncertainty and high unemployment,” said Ezra Becker, director of consulting and strategy at TransUnion’s financial services unit.

Credit card delinquencies, which measure the percentage of debtors who are at least 90 days late in making payments, fell to 0.92%, down from a 17.1% in the prior quarter. Both are the biggest decreases since the recession began at the end of 2007, said Becker.

]]> http://www.sbdctampabay.com/consumers-are-paying-down-credit-cards-and-buying-less/feed 0 The Outlook for Business Credit Cards http://www.sbdctampabay.com/the-outlook-for-business-credit-cards http://www.sbdctampabay.com/the-outlook-for-business-credit-cards#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 20:55:08 +0000 jparrish http://70.32.108.103/?p=1549 Business Credit Cards are a substantial source of capital for small businesses. So how have current economic conditions impacted the ability of small businesses to access this important source of capital?

According to the April 2010 Federal Reserve Survey of Senior Loan Officers:

  1. In the last 6 months only 2.9% of respondents indicated that credit card standards had eased while 32.3% had stricter credit card standards for new business cards.
  2. In the last six months, 41.2% of respondents had increased the required credit score to qualify for new business cards. None had decreased the credit score.
  3. In the last six months, 26.5% of respondents had lowered credit limits on existing business cards.
  4. In the last six months, 26.4% of respondents have increased their frequency of closing existing business credit card accounts.

In summary, the access to capital via business credit cards continues to significantly tighten in spite of some possible improvement in the economy. Only, 11.1% of respondents indicated that an improvement in the economy is very important to an easing of credit standards and 33.3% of the respondents indicated that an improvement in the economy is not important to an easing of credit standards. Therefore, do not look for a significant easing of business card credit standards anytime soon.

]]> http://www.sbdctampabay.com/the-outlook-for-business-credit-cards/feed 0 The Threat from Within http://www.sbdctampabay.com/the-threat-from-within http://www.sbdctampabay.com/the-threat-from-within#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:00:46 +0000 bmckown http://70.32.108.103/marketing-and-sales/the-threat-from-within If you are a business owner and you think shrinkage is what happened to your clothes after a trip to the cleaners, you really should read on. In business, shrinkage usually describes the financial losses caused by employees. For a business owner, there is nothing more disheartening than learning a trusted employee has stolen from the company.


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