Angel Au-Yeung of The Wall Street Journal is reporting the four biggest U.S. banks reported higher credit card spending in 2023, up from the previous year. She writes:
From fuel and groceries to hotels and airline tickets, consumers are putting more purchases on credit cards—and taking longer to pay them off.
The four biggest U.S. banks reported higher credit card spending in 2023 compared with the previous year. In fact, since 2020, credit card spending has steadily increased at three of the four. The exception is Citigroup, where credit card spending hit a recent peak in 2021. […]
The deposit decline is partly from customers’ moving their money to higher-yielding alternatives, Wells Fargo executives said. Still, they acknowledged that lower-income households are feeling squeezed.
“The further you go down in income levels or the further you go down in wealth levels, the cumulative impact of inflation has really taken a toll,” said Wells Fargo CFO Michael Santomassimo. “In some cases, they have been having to build bigger credit card balances.”
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