VantageScore President and CEO Silvio Tavares joined anchors Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg’s Businessweek to discuss consumer credit health and the latest insights from VantageScore®’s November 2024 CreditGauge.

Chairman Powell is spot on – the consumer is healthy and that’s good news for us as consumers and for the economy. The challenge we have seen is that inflation is more stubborn than anticipated. The Fed intends to keep rates higher for longer, and that means less bank lending and probably less consumer credit utilization.

Tavares also highlighted consumers’ responsible management of their credit, including modest spending as the holiday spending season kicked off.

Consumers are overall managing their credit cards well, and they are not getting in over their head on things like personal loans or their mortgage. This is a good thing and overall, and the economy is doing very well. They are being disciplined about their credit isolation not getting in over their heads”
He also pointed out that banks are also modestly increasing credit lines but still being cautious. “We’re going to expect to see that continue into next year,” he explained.

CreditGauge is VantageScore’s monthly analysis of U.S. consumer credit health. Catch up on the latest CreditGauge insights here.

Watch the interview here: