Economy & Policy

Less junk mail: the upside of the credit crunch

By Barbara Kiviat | August 11, 2008 | +

Grisly news today from the Federal Reserve’s July survey of senior bank loan officers. Loan-writing standards are tighter across the board, but especially for prime mortgages (74% of banks reported tighter standards, compared to 62% in the April survey), and credit card loans (67% of banks reported tighter standards, compared to 32% in the April survey).

The good news about how this plays out comes from the market research firm Synovate, which had a press release of its own today. During the second quarter, the number of credit-card offers received by U.S. households were down 17% from the same period a year ago. That’s only 1.06 billion pieces of junk mail, compared to the 1.27 billion we saw last year. HSBC, which used to really like subprime customers, cut back the most, down 54%. Citibank’s volume was down 45%—to its lowest point in more than 10 years.

Barbara!

Related Topics: Economy & Policy

  • Latest on Business

    Don Emmert / Getty Images
    Apple February 10, 2012

    Apple Now Worth More Than Microsoft, Google Combined

    How high can Apple soar? The tech juggernaut is closing in on $500 per share, a dramatic psychological threshold that underscores the company’s stunning performance over the last decade. How massive has Apple become? It’s now worth more by market capitalization than Google and Microsoft combined. The company’s latest stock price surge is being fueled by rumors that a new version of the iPad — the iPad 3 — will appear next month.

    From our Partners

    Ben Bernanke Is Wrong About Debt and Interest RatesSlate

    Photo-Illustration by Alexander Ho for TIME; Getty Images
    Technology & Media February 10, 2012

    After Motorola Deal Approval, Can Google Hardware Be Far Behind?

    Now that federal regulators appear poised to approve Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility, speculation is mounting about what the Internet giant will do with its newly acquired assets. And what assets they are. Once the deal is formally approved — an announcement could come next week, according to multiple reports — Google will be in possession of some 17,000 patents related to mobile phone technology. And it will be well-situated to enter the hardware business, which could mean that consumers will soon see Google-branded phones and home entertainment devices.

  • MountainGal

    So these companies come up with slick ads and promises; consumers fall for them; the U.S. economy suffers due to people’s lack of fiscal responsibly (and trusting these ads); so these same companies scale back their marketing efforts. What a mess. I hope in the future marketing efforts from financial institutions are required to have more clear language and really spell out what these people are signing up for, and I also hope people realize easy credit is not really a good thing.

  • Ajay_O

    Just another curious note. Why does Barbara always sign it with Barbara !….

    Justin come back, your blog is going through a Yahoo style takeover :)

  • Barbara Kiviat

    Glad to see you’re a curious capitalist, too, Ajay_O. As I explained long ago, I sign my name so that when people get their morning emails with our posts they know it’s me writing and not Justin. I initially included the exclamation point to be self-mocking. Now I do it to annoy a reader named Malcolm. Malcolm!

  • Aziz Musa

    There’s much more upside that this! If it wasn’t for the Credit crunch we wouldn’d have a euphemism for recession – Nor would we have coined ‘Credit Squeeze’ or allowed supermarkets to make offers so good that they “Price Crunch!”

    http://business-vs-technology.blogspot.com/

  • http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2008/11/10/what-credit-crunch/ Curious Capitalist – TIME.com » Blog Archive What credit crunch? «

    [...] Synovate, a firm that tracks credit-card mail volume, today released its third-quarter figures. Not surprisingly, folks are getting a lot fewer offers in their mailboxes these days: 940 million pitches went out [...]

  • http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/08/05/are-credit-card-companies-getting-their-groove-back/ Are credit-card companies getting their groove back? | The Curious Capitalist | TIME.com

    [...] of the nicer effects of the credit crunch has been less junk mail from card companies looking to sign you up. Is that [...]

blog comments powered by Disqus