Consumer Lending NAICS 522291

Sep 8, 2025 - Auto Loan and Credit Card Debt Delinquencies At High Levels

• Credit risk is on the rise in the US as delinquencies in auto loans and credit card payments have reached the highest levels of the decade, according to trade association America’s Credit Unions. Underwater auto loans have been flirting with pandemic-level defaults, and credit card delinquencies are the most they’ve been since The Great Recession. While the rise is significant, the delinquencies have nonetheless shown signs of stabilizing, but the trend worries leveraged credit unions. Consumer credit scores during and immediately after the pandemic were artificially inflated since loans at that time were practically interest-free. Government stimulus payments were used by many consumers to pay down debt, thus raising credit scores above 720 for many borrowers. Now, more than 20% of those borrowers have scores below 720 once debt accumulated again at higher interest rates. If the labor market continues to decline, experts expect delinquencies to rise even higher.
• Cash-strapped Americans are increasingly turning to on-demand pay apps to get cash immediately after working, rather than waiting for paychecks. DailyPay, FlexWage, and Tapcheck are on-demand services that let users withdraw pay they have already earned ahead of time. Marketed as alternatives to payday loans, on-demand payment services charge one-off fees (usually $2-$5) for their use rather than interest rates. They can be convenient for those living paycheck to paycheck to pay bills, but too much use means when your paycheck does arrive it will be much smaller. The popularity of such apps is rising as America’s total household debt hit a record high of $18.2 trillion in Q1 2025, according to the Federal Reserve. Roughly $5 trillion of that debt is consumer-based and non-housing related. A recent survey from finance firm Achieve found that 35% of consumers say they can’t pay all of their bills on time.

• About 5 million student loan borrowers will have their outstanding balances sent to collection agencies by the Department of Education on May 5, potentially negatively affecting credit scores for millions. If a student loan borrower hasn’t made a payment in more than 270 days the loan is considered in default. When that happens with a federal student loan, the government can send it for collections, garnish wages, or take Social Security funds or income tax refunds. The situation dates back to President Biden pausing student loan payments for 12 months in 2023, and did not count late payments towards default. That moratorium ended in October 2024, and with the announcement of collections resuming under Trump, almost 9 million student loan borrowers will automatically be deemed delinquent in their payments. Delinquency can cost a borrower an average of 170 points on their credit rating, per the New York Federal Reserve.
• So-called "earned wage access" (EWA) programs, which allow workers to take a portion of their paychecks before payday, often for a fee, have grown rapidly, according to CNBC. EWA programs, which operate either directly to the consumer or through employers, may reduce demand for payday loans. In the employer-sponsored market, $9.5 billion in wages was accessed early during 2020, triple the $3.2 billion in 2018, according to Datos Insights. The number of transactions also increased threefold over that period to 55.8 million transactions from 18.6 million. High worker demand for such programs makes them a cost-effective way for businesses to retain and recruit employees, according to consultants and academics. High fees and frequent use of EWA programs can translate to an annual interest rate of more than 330%, according to experts, regulators, and consumer advocates.