Anna Maria Andriotis

speaker

3,396 appearances 52 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2017 last heard Dec 2022

Anna Maria Andriotis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

No recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

WSJ Your Money Briefing · Why Banks Are Sending Out More Credit-Card Offers · 19 Nov 2021 podcast

For the banks, not so much because they rely on interest income, essentially the interest charges that people pay on their credit card balances, which is a very big contributor to credit card issuers' revenues. matched

So basically what played out, as you pointed out, is that when the pandemic began, the matched

the stimulus payments that were being sent out to consumers, as well as the pullback in spending on consumers. matched

And because they weren't traveling like they used to, they weren't eating out as much, they had cut back on a bunch of expenses. matched

So all of that taken together contributed to a significant drop in credit card balances. matched

Now, in the last few months, things have changed. matched

Credit card spending is back up. matched

It has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, but balances have not. matched

And banks say that is because consumers still have a good amount of savings tied to their savings habits and their spending habits since the pandemic began. matched

So you have spending up, you have new credit cards going out, being up substantially. matched

But credit card balances on general purpose and store credit cards increased by 5% from April when they bottomed out to September of this year. matched

So they're starting to rise again, credit card balances, but they're not back to the levels that they were at prior to the pandemic. matched

And all these different efforts with mailed solicitations, with improving rewards offerings, rolling out new rewards credit cards, matched

are all aimed at one direction. matched

They're aimed at getting more cards in more people's hands who are likely to carry credit card balances. matched

The issuers are all kind of going after the same pool of people. matched

These are people with good credit scores who are likely to pay their bills, at least their minimum required payment of their credit card bills, but who issuers hope will carry balances from month to month. matched

So certainly as prices of goods and services increase, for people who are kind of strapped for cash, for people who don't have the savings that many people build up during the pandemic, those who are living paycheck to paycheck, matched

In past times, at least, when cost of goods went up, it was almost a natural thing for people who were strapped for cash to rely on their credit cards to pay for the necessities that they need. matched

So it's still early. matched

Showing 821–840 of 3,396 · page 42 of 170