OTTAWA — Canadians have become better at making payments on time for their credit cards and auto loans over the last year, according to a report released Tuesday.
Credit analysis firm TransUnion said the credit-card delinquency rate in Canada — measuring the percentage of cardholders late by 90 days or more on payments — fell to 0.34% in the third quarter from 0.38% a year earlier.
The delinquency rate of auto-loan payments declined to 0.11% from 0.15%, TransUnion said.
“There continue to be positive signs in the credit market as Canadians slowly manage out of the recession,” said Thomas Higgins, TransUnion’s vice-president of analytics.
TransUnion said Canada’s “credit-active population” in the third quarter was 24.8 million people, up 0.15% from a year earlier. The average debt, not including mortgage, of someone with credit was $25,163, up 4.3% from last year.
The total amount of debt in the country was up 4.3%, which was deemed as a “modest” gain in comparison to the double-digit increases seen before the recession.
Among provinces, Quebec saw the most year-to-year debt growth at 6.6 per cent, and Manitoba the lowest at 2.6%.
Source: Derek Abma, Financial Post · Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010
