A sí, sus poemas 13, 35, 65 y 6 También se alega en este punto la forma epistolar de algunas com posiciones de los elegiacos más o menos contempora-

2.2.1 Overall and by card type

Most adult Americans—about 63%—have an open credit card. A similar share, 57%, has an open general purpose card, but only a minority of consumers holds private label cards. These shares are shown in Figure 9.9

Figure 9 also reflects that credit ownership has become marginally more common over the last few years. Although the increase is slight, it holds true for cardholding generally, for general purpose cardholding, and for private label cardholding.

9 _{The data in Figure 9—like all data we derive from the CCP—only cover consumers who hold cards on which they}

are legally liable to the account issuer. They do not include other authorized users on those card accounts. Some data points from our 2013 report included authorized users and this should be considered in comparing data across the two reports. Note also that the data in Figure 9 are not additive. Many of the consumers who hold at least one open general purpose card are the same consumers who hold at least one open private label card.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2012 2013 2014 2015 21-34 35-49 50-64 65 or older

FIGURE 9: SHARE OF ADULT AMERICANS WITH ONE OR MORE (A) OPEN CREDIT CARDS; (B) OPEN GENERAL PURPOSE CREDIT CARDS; AND (C) OPEN PRIVATE LABEL CARDS (CCP, CENSUS)

FIGURE 10: SHARE OF CONSUMERS WITH NO CREDIT CARD HOLDINGS (CCP)

0% 20% 40% 60%

2012 2013 2014 2015

Any card General purpose Private label

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 2012 2013 2014 2015

Figure 10 shows that while 37% of adult Americans do not have a credit card, this overall number conceals considerable variance by credit score. Two-thirds of consumers with a deep subprime score had no credit card at the beginning of 2015. That share drops to under 20% for consumers with a core subprime score, which is actually less than the 22% share of consumers with prime credit scores who have no card. Only 8% of consumers with superprime scores are without a credit card.

Table 1 expands on the overlap between general purpose and private label cardholding. It shows that of consumers with at least one credit card, 53% have both general purpose and private label cards. Just 7% of those with credit cards have only private label cards; conversely, about 40% of those with credit cards have only general purpose cards.

TABLE 1: DISTRIBUTION OF CARDHOLDERS BY OPEN CREDIT CARDHOLDINGS Q1 2015 (TABLE SUMS TO 100%) (CCP)

Private label

General purpose None One Multiple

None NA 5% 2%

One 18% 6% 5%

Multiple 22% 16% 26%

These data vary substantially by the credit score of the consumer. For example, while just 7% of

subprime credit scores.10 _{Table 2, therefore, compares the distribution of cardholdings across}

consumers with subprime scores—core and deep subprime—combined.

TABLE 2: DISTRIBUTION OF CARDHOLDERS WITH CORE OR DEEP SUBPRIME CREDIT SCORES BY OPEN CREDIT CARDHOLDINGS, Q1 2015 (CCP)

Private label

General purpose None One Multiple

None NA 13% 5%

One 27% 8% 5%

Multiple 16% 10% 15%

More than half of consumers with subprime credit scores have no credit card. Only 29% of all consumers with subprime scores have more than one open credit card account. Of cardholders with subprime scores, 43% have only general purpose cards, 38% have private label and general purpose cards, and only 18% have only private label cards.

In contrast, only 12% of consumers with prime or superprime credit scores have no open credit cards. For the vast majority of these consumers who have open credit cards, the most common pattern—at 29% of cardholding consumers—is to have multiple general purpose and multiple private label cards. More than 80% of cardholders in this credit range have more than one card, independent of type. About 39% of cardholding consumers in this group have only general purpose cards, while just 5% have only private label cards. The remaining 57% have both types.

10 _{Table 1 includes all adult U.S. consumers, including those with a credit record but no credit score, as well as those}

with no credit score at all. More than 97% of consumers with a credit record but no score lack an open credit card. Once a consumer has a credit card, they are overwhelmingly likely to be assigned a credit score.

TABLE 3: DISTRIBUTION OF CARDHOLDERS WITH PRIME OR SUPERPRIME CREDIT SCORES BY OPEN CREDIT CARDHOLDINGS, Q1 2015 (CCP)

Private label

General purpose None One Multiple

None NA 3% 2%

One 15% 6% 5%

Multiple 23% 17% 29%

The average American consumer credit cardholder has slightly fewer than four open credit cards. Figure 11 shows that this average has not changed significantly in the last few years. It also shows that there is significant variation in the number of cards by the credit score of the cardholder. Consumers with the lowest credit scores have, on average, the fewest number of cards, but the relationship between credit score and cardholding is not linear. Consumers with prime scores average only slightly more cards per consumer than consumers with superprime scores.

FIGURE 11: AVERAGE NUMBER OF CARDS HELD PER CARDHOLDING CONSUMER (CCP)

Figures 12 and 13 expand this analysis to show average cardholdings for general purpose and private label cards, respectively, by the credit score of the borrower. The average consumer who holds at least one general purpose card has consistently held about 2.6 such cards over the past few years. This number increases as credit scores improve, but there is little consistent

difference between consumers with prime and superprime scores. Furthermore, even those consumers with a core subprime score who hold a general purpose card hold, on average, at least two cards. There have been no notable differences over the last few years.

The patterns of private label cardholding are different. Holdings have been growing faster in recent years, both overall and across the range of credit scores. Additionally, consumers with core subprime scores have increased their private label cardholdings over recent years to the point where—on this metric—they now closely resemble consumers with prime scores. In addition, consumers with superprime scores now hold fewer private label cards, on average, than consumers with prime or core subprime scores.

1 2 3 4

2012 2013 2014 2015

FIGURE 12: GENERAL PURPOSE CARDHOLDERS’ AVERAGE HOLDING OF GENERAL PURPOSE CARDS (CCP)

Figures 12 and 13 also show that while private label cardholding may generally skew towards borrowers with lower credit scores, consumers with subprime credit scores generally have similar general purpose and private label holdings. Consumers with core subprime scores and who hold general purpose cards, on average, have around 2.2 such cards. Consumers with subprime scores who hold private label cards hold the same number of private label cards on average. Although the numbers are lower for consumers with deep subprime scores, at 1.7 cards on average, they are the same across general purpose and private label.

1 2 3

2012 2013 2014 2015

FIGURE 13: PRIVATE LABEL CARDHOLDERS’ AVERAGE HOLDING OF PRIVATE LABEL CARDS (CCP)

2.2.2 By age

In the last few years, cardholding has remained relatively stable by age. Figure 14 shows the share of adults in a given age range who have at least one credit card. The only notable changes over time are a decrease in the share of consumers 18 to 20 years old with at least one credit card, and an increase in the share of consumers over the age of 65 with at least one credit card. We also examined the number of open credit card accounts held by consumers with a credit card in a given age range. As of March 1, 2015, cardholders age 18 to 20 have an average of 1.5 credit cards. The corresponding averages for consumers in the age ranges 21 to 34, 35 to 49, 50 to 64, and over 65 years old are 2.9, 3.9, 4.3, and 3.9, respectively.

1 2

2012 2013 2014 2015

FIGURE 14: SHARE OF CONSUMERS HOLDING AT LEAST ONE CREDIT CARD, BY AGE (CCP, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU POPULATION ESTIMATES)

2.2.3 Concentration of balances

Although many consumers hold a range of credit cards, they still tend to concentrate their use onto a subset of those cards. To examine the concentration of use, we identified the share of consumers who concentrate more than 90% of their outstanding general purpose card balances on a single general purpose credit card (Figure 15). Almost exactly half of all consumers with at least one general purpose card record at least 90% of their total general purpose balances on a single card. This includes consumers who despite having a general purpose card carried no balances at all in that quarter. According to data in the CCP, about one in seven consumers with a general purpose card fell into that category in a given quarter.

Patterns of balance concentration differ between consumers with different credit scores. Consumers with the very lowest and very highest scores record above-average concentration, whereas consumers with scores nearer the center of the scale record the lowest concentration. This may be due to how supply and demand changes across credit risk tiers. As seen above, consumers with deep subprime scores tend to hold fewer general purpose cards than other consumers. As a result, they may not have the option to select between cards for individual purchases or to carry specific balances. Consumers with superprime and prime scores, while

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 2012Q2 2013Q2 2014Q2 2015Q1 18-20 21-34 35-49 50-64 65+

holding similar numbers of cards on average, show very different patterns of concentration, which may be the result of different patterns of usage.

FIGURE 15: SHARE OF CONSUMERS WITH AT LEAST 90% OF THEIR TOTAL GENERAL PURPOSE BALANCES ON A SINGLE CARD (CCP)