Consumers take on more debt: Federal Reserve

By Kerri Ann Panchuk
• February 8, 2012 • 12:46pm

Consumer credit outstanding rose 9.3% in December to $2.49 trillion, compared to $2.47 trillion in November and $2.46 trillion in October, the Federal Reserve said.

The data shows growing demand for school loans as consumers latch onto investments in education during the recovery. Auto loans also rose.

Revolving credit outstanding, which includes credit cards, grew 4.1% to $801 billion, while nonrevolving credit — which includes loans for manufactured homes, education, boats, trailers and vacations but not mortgages — grew 11.8% to $1.69 trillion.

When studying revolving lines of credit, debt levels for pools of securitized assets reached $41.6 billion, unchanged from November. For nonrevolving lines of credit, pools of securitized assets hit debt levels of $76.2 billion, down from $78.3 billion.

Commercial banks still held most of the nonrevolving and revolving consumer debt, followed by finance companies, credit unions, the federal government and savings institutions.

kerripanchuk@housingwire.com

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