Consumer credit grows at 6.4% annual rate, fastest since November 2022

Total consumer credit grew at a seasonally adjusted 6.4% annualized rate in September, up from 1.9% in August and 4.1% in July, the Federal Reserve's G.19 report showed Friday. It was the fastest pace since November 2022 in the Fed's revised data and about double the 3.0% average of the past four quarters (2.1%, 2.6%, 3.1% and 4.2%). Monthly readings swing widely. Third-quarter growth was 4.2% annualized, with revolving credit up 4.1% and nonrevolving up 4.2%.^{[1, 4–5]}

Revolving credit climbed $16.3 billion in September to $1.37 trillion, after falling $5.0 billion in August. That 14.5% annualized pace, the fastest since November 2023, compares with a 4.2% average over the past four quarters. Nonrevolving loans such as auto and student debt rose $11.5 billion to $3.86 trillion, putting total consumer credit at $5.22 trillion. It is up $44.1 billion so far this year, from $1.32 trillion in December, and its monthly growth rates have averaged 4.4% annualized through September, matching 2024's 4.4% at this point and up from 2.9% in 2025.^{[1, 4–5]}

The average rate on card accounts assessed interest rose to 22.36% in the third quarter from 22.15% in the second, preliminary Fed data show. That is down 0.47 percentage point from 22.83% a year earlier. Across all card accounts, the average slipped to 21.19% from 21.39% a year earlier. Over the same span, rates on new 60-month car loans eased to 7.54% from 7.64%, and rates on 24-month personal loans climbed to 11.90% from 11.14%.^[1]

The New York Fed releases its third-quarter Household Debt and Credit Report Tuesday at 11 a.m. ET, adding delinquency data to Friday's G.19 balances. Its second-quarter report put credit card balances at $1.26 trillion, up $21 billion, and total household debt at $18.77 trillion. In the second quarter, an annualized 6.97% of card balances moved into serious delinquency (90 days or more), up from 6.93% a year earlier.^[6–7]

Barclays' Samsung Galaxy Card, launched in July, has beaten the bank's internal adoption expectations, Doug Villone, head of U.S. cards and partnerships, told Banking Dive. The bank does not disclose sign-ups. The card is added to Samsung Wallet on approval, and cardholders can do about 70% of common servicing tasks in the wallet. More than half of the card's transactions run through Samsung Pay, mostly outside Samsung's own ecosystem. Building into the partner's app "creates a new layer of coordination," Villone said, adding, "We never viewed this as a 'set it and forget it' product."

Co-brand programs that once might refresh every five or 10 years now need a refresh "in many cases, every three or four years," Villone said, and "often it's the value proposition that may need to be refreshed" rather than the look of the card. Where most co-brands once offered 1% to 3% in a rewards currency, programs now may add status, lounge access, streaming credits or quadruple points at grocery stores. Barclays, which entered U.S. cards in 2004 with a partnership model, extended its Frontier Airlines co-brand in June through 2037. Its Barnes & Noble card is about 20 years old, and its JetBlue partnership is 10 years old.^[2]

Affirm plans to begin testing Edge with banks in the first half of 2027, American Banker reported. Edge embeds Affirm's pay-over-time loans in bank and credit union mobile apps. Customers would see their purchasing power and browse Affirm's marketplace inside their banking app, while Affirm originates and services the loans. At its May investor day, Affirm put the addressable market at about $140 billion. Old National Bank, a $74 billion-asset lender, said in May it was exploring Edge. Affirm President Michael Linford said of the pace, "Patience is the code word here."^[8]

PNC raised its branch build-out to about 370 new locations by 2031, from an earlier target of 300 by 2030. The plan includes about 53 locations in eight markets in South Carolina and Georgia, and 10 more in Texas, Florida and North Carolina. PNC has about 2,400 branches today.^[3]

Rate watch tracks what savers earn and how much money sits in each bucket, the other side of the card rates above.

Savings and other liquid deposits: Balances were $10.44 trillion in September, down from $10.87 trillion a year earlier. The FDIC's national average savings rate was 0.38% in October, down from 0.40% a year earlier. Online banks pay far more. EverBank pays 4.20% APY on new Performance Savings accounts, and Openbank, Santander's digital bank, pays 4.00% (4.35% for new customers' first six months), both as posted Nov. 9. SoFi pays 3.30% with direct deposit (as of Oct. 20), and Ally pays 3.20% (as of Nov. 5).

CDs (small time deposits): Balances were $1.51 trillion in September, down from $1.52 trillion a year earlier. The national average 12-month CD rate was 1.76% in October, up from 1.68% a year earlier; Ally's High Yield CD pays 2.90% APY (as of Nov. 5).

Money market funds: Assets were $8.02 trillion in the week ended Nov. 4, up from $7.53 trillion a year earlier, including $3.12 trillion in retail funds. These uninsured funds pay more than most bank savings accounts. The Crane 100 index of the largest funds had a seven-day yield of 3.75% as of Nov. 8, compared with 3.58% at the end of 2025.

Biggest low-rate deposit bases: JPMorgan Chase's consumer bank held $1.10 trillion of average deposits in the third quarter, up 4% from a year earlier, and earned a 2.78% margin on them. JPMorgan does not disclose a consumer rate paid. Bank of America's Consumer Banking unit held $948.6 billion of average deposits, little changed from $947.4 billion a year earlier. It paid an average rate of 0.51% on them, compared with 1.49% across all of BofA's deposits.

The shift: Over the past year, savings and other liquid deposits fell about $422 billion while money market fund assets grew about $481 billion. Deposit balances fell about $822 billion in November and December 2025 alone and have since recovered about $338 billion.

Deposit balances are Federal Reserve H.6 data, seasonally adjusted; rates are each bank's posted rate or FDIC monthly averages.^[9–24]

California's Business and Consumer Services Agency demanded that crypto ATM operator CoinFlip pay $4.8 million in restitution to scam victims. The agency said the company failed to detect, prevent, report and mitigate suspicious activity over five years. The agency, led by former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, also said consumers can no longer rely on federal regulators for protection.^[25]

The National Urban League and the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations sued the CFPB on Oct. 29 in federal court in Massachusetts. They seek to overturn the bureau's April rewrite of Regulation B, which implements the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The rule ends disparate-impact liability, narrows discouragement protections and limits special-purpose credit programs at for-profit lenders. The plaintiffs say the bureau changed nothing after about 64,500 comments, 90% of them opposed, and that former acting Director Russell Vought lacked authority to issue the rule. A May suit by the National Fair Housing Alliance and others in Washington, D.C., challenges the same rule.^[26–27]

By June 30, 2026, the CFPB had closed 1,327 of the 1,552 supervisory actions open on July 1, 2025, or about 86%, its semiannual report to Congress shows. It also closed 66 of 80 open exams and about 40% of pending investigations, and cut scheduled exams by about half. In the period, it cited no fair-lending violations and made no fair-lending referrals to the Justice Department.^[28]

PNC named Alex Overstrom, its retail banking chief since 2022, chief financial officer effective March 1, 2027. Rob Reilly, CFO for 13 years, becomes executive vice chair and senior adviser to CEO Bill Demchak, and PNC said it will name a new retail head soon.^[3]

Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman on community banking, 8:40 a.m. ET; $58 billion of three-year notes, 1 p.m. ET.^[29–30]

October CPI, 8:30 a.m. ET; New York Fed Q3 household debt report, 11 a.m. ET; $42 billion of 10-year notes, 1 p.m. ET; Gov. Christopher Waller in London.^{[7, 29–31]}

Veterans Day: bond market closed.^[32]

Gov. Michael Barr on AI, 10 a.m. ET; $25 billion of 30-year bonds, 1 p.m. ET.^[29–30]

October PPI, 8:30 a.m. ET; Bowman on supervision and regulation, 10:50 a.m. ET.^{[29, 33]}

American Banker's Kate Berry reports that Democrats flipped five attorney general seats for a 29-22 majority next year. Berry writes that those offices are likely to focus on pocketbook issues such as hidden fees and algorithmic pricing, with AI also on their list. It is worth reading as a map of where state enforcement is likely to land as the CFPB pulls back.^[34]

Banking Dive's Caitlin Mullen talks with Socure CEO Johnny Ayers about why JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citi have blocked AI agents from customer accounts. Socure says it works with 19 of the top 20 U.S. banks. The piece lays out the liability questions in plain terms, and Ayers expects lenders to set clear protocols in about six months.^[35]