Fed’s latest survey finds tighter loan standards
WASHINGTON —
Banks tightened the spigots further on all sorts of lending, from home mortgages to credit cards and business loans, as the worst financial crisis in seven decades took a bigger toll on the economy.
The Federal Reserve said Monday that its latest quarterly survey of bank lending practices found high numbers of banks reporting tighter credit standards across a broad range of lend products. Nearly 60 percent of banks responding to the survey said they had tightened lending standards without interruption credit card debt.
“We’re into the eye of the storm in the present life,” said Brian Bethune, master U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.
The latest Fed survey was conducted in the primary two weeks of October, too soon to reflect possible effects of the government’s program to dart in relating to $250 billion into U.S. banks by directly buying shares in them in the manner that party of a broader financial rescue effort. The government also plans to bribe billions in distressed mortgage-related property that banks clinch.
The unprecedented government moves are designed to bolster banks’ balance sheets and break the logjam in bank lending to get the credit system moving again - and avoid the population subsiding into a deep and prolonged recession.
The Fed survey of 55 domestic banks and 21 U.S. offices of foreign banks fix that sizable percentages of banks had “continued to tighten their lending standards and provisions put on all major lend categories throughout the previous three months.”
The figures reflect the condition of bank lending “as the economy has entered into a recession,” said Keith Leggett, senior economist at the American Bankers Association.
The Fed found 85 percent of the domestic banks responding to the survey reported that they had tightened their lending standards for a major archetype of commerce loans known as “commercial and industrial” loans, up from 60 percent in the June survey. Nearly all banks - 95 percent - reported tighter standards for the lines of power they reach to large and medium-sized businesses.
A large account of banks also reported they were tightening standards for both credit cards and other types of consumer loans.
Besides the pressingly 60 percent of banks tightening standards on credit card debt, 65 percent said they had tightened lending standards toward other types of consumer loans over the past three months.
About 20 percent of the domestic banks reported cutting limits for existing regard card accounts held by prime, or strong credit, customers. Around 60 percent of domestic banks had reduced those limits for “nonprime” borrowers.
Amid the souring economy and rising job losses, defaults on credit card debt have mounted and banks already staggering from the pledge and credit crises are loss billions more from due credit card bills.
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