Consumers owed credit card companies more than $105 billion in interest and more than $25 billion in fees in 2022, according to a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report. Total outstanding credit card debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time since the CFPB started gathering data. "Last year, Americans paid $130 billion in interest and fees on their credit cards," CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said.
Credit card balances have slipped into severe delinquency, as more than 5 percent of balances were at least 90 days overdue in the second quarter of 2023, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That signified a rise from 3.35% in the second quarter of last year. Credit card debt saw the largest observable increase among all debt types, surging $45 billion in the April-to-June period amid the expansion of new credit card accounts.
Consumers with revolving balances have found that interest and fees have outpaced the rewards they earn from their cards, the CFPB noted in their recent report. "In 2022, consumers who carried debt from month to month paid 94 percent of total interest and fees charged but earned just 27 percent of rewards at major credit card companies," the CFPB said. Compare that to consumers who cleared their balances monthly.