Center for Microeconomic Data

 
SCE CREDIT ACCESS SURVEY
Credit Application Rate Ticks Up; Rejection Rate Declines
  • The application rate for any kind of credit over the past twelve months increased to 43.4 percent in February 2024, up from 42.5 percent in October 2023 and 40.3 percent in June 2023. The February 2024 reading is the highest since October 2022. Application rates decreased for auto loans (by 3.7 percentage points to 9.8 percent), mortgage refinances (by 2.4 percentage points to 0.9 percent), credit cards (by 0.2 percentage point to 28.8 percent) and credit card limit requests (by 3.2 percentage points to 14.6 percent) and increased for mortgages (by 1.3 percentage points to 5.6 percent). The application rate for auto loans and mortgage refinances reached new series’ lows.
  • The overall rejection rate for credit applicants declined to 18.7 percent in February 2024, down from 21.1 percent in October 2023. The decrease was broad-based across credit score groups but driven by those over age 40. The rejection rate decreased to 16.6 percent from 18.7 percent for credit cards and to 1.5 percent from 9.6 percent for auto loans, while it increased to 22.5 percent from 13.0 percent for mortgages, 35.3 percent from 32.1 percent for credit card limit increase requests, and 26.7 percent from 9.5 percent for mortgage refinance applications.
  • Looking ahead, the proportion of respondents reporting they are likely to apply for one or more types of credit over the next twelve months declined slightly to 22.9 percent in February 2024 from 25.1 percent in October 2023.
  • The average reported probability of a loan application being rejected decreased for credit cards (by 0.3 percentage point to 30.0 percent), credit limit increases (by 3.3 percentage points to 38.0 percent), and mortgages (by 5.6 percentage points to 42.0 percent), and increased for auto loans (by 1.2 percentage points to 31.8 percent) and mortgage refinancing (by 6.3 percentage points to 33.4 percent). The reading for auto loans is a new series high.


Editor’s Note: We are currently working through some technical issues in the interactive charts regarding the display of dates along the x-axis. As a result, data for 2013-14 are currently not presented in the interactive charts; data for all years remain available to download, however.
Credit Access Infographic
 
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