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How Tech is Changing the Modern Credit Landscape

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From the beginnings of General Motors Acceptance Corporation to the introduction of the Diner’s Club charge card, the history of credit has been filled with game-changing innovations.

Today, new innovations in tech are continuing to shape the consumer credit industry – and with U.S. consumer debt sitting at $13 trillion, these changes could play a role in impacting how consumers access credit both today and in the future.

The Modern Credit Landscape

Today’s infographic comes to us from Equifax, and it gives a snapshot of modern credit as well as a perspective on how new technologies such as trended and alternative data are changing the landscape.

It’s the second part of our ongoing three-part series on credit:

Part 1: The History of Consumer CreditPart 2: Modern CreditPart 3: Future
How Tech is Changing the Modern Credit Landscape
Part 1: The History of Consumer CreditPart 2: Modern CreditPart 3: Future

Credit scores play a massive component of consumer life, and they are used to gauge creditworthiness for big purchases ranging from homes to launching a business.

Interestingly, how this scoring works is not at all static – and new technology is being applied to increase accuracy as well as open credit up to more consumers throughout society.

Traditional Credit Scoring

The modern numeric credit score emerged in 1989, and it uses logistic regression to make informed decisions on a consumer’s creditworthiness.

The scoring model is made up of five distinct categories:

CategoryPercentageDescription
Payment History35%Are scheduled payments made on time?
Debt Burden30%Includes multiple factors such as number of accounts with balances, amounts owed, and debt-to-limit ratio.
Length of Credit History15%Average age of accounts and age of oldest account.
Types of Credit Used10%What type of credit is used? (i.e. revolving, installments, etc.)
New Credit Requests10%Hard new credit inquiries can hurt scores.

But this model does have its limitations. For example, traditional credit scores give a snapshot of credit rather than showing how the “big picture” of a person’s credit is changing. Further, current scores can also can be inhibited by a lack of data, resulting in an inaccurate representation of a person’s credit.

Tech to the Rescue

On a global basis, the data universe is doubling every two years – and this abundant new resource is revolutionizing consumer credit.

Trended Data
Instead of looking at a snapshot of a credit score, it’s possible to analyze the direction, velocity, tipping points, and magnitude of changes in a consumer’s credit history to get a bigger, more accurate picture. This is called trended data, and it can offer up to 20% improvement in predictive performance.

Alternative Data
Credit history is important, but there are increasingly other sources of data that can provide a view of a consumer’s creditworthiness. Alternative data taps into information on property ownership, wealth, how customers pay everyday bills, and other data sources to provide a more well-rounded picture.

Other Tech
Technology has given consumers unprecedented access to their credit data – and in the meantime, new science behind neural networks is being implemented to give even more sophisticated scoring capabilities.

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Mapping Credit Card Delinquency Rates in the U.S. by State

Which states have the lowest credit card delinquency rates in America, and which have the highest?

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mapping credit card delinquency rates in the U.S.

Credit Card Delinquency Rates in the U.S. by State

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Credit card debt carries a hefty bill in America, and falling behind on payments can be extremely costly for cardholders.

This graphic shows credit card delinquency rates across 50 U.S. states, as of Q3 2023. This data comes from a WalletHub study published in January 2024.

Which States Have the Lowest and Highest Delinquency Rates?

Credit card delinquency is when a cardholder falls behind on required monthly payments. Credit agencies are often notified after two months of delinquent payments.

WalletHub examined proprietary user data on the average number of delinquent credit card tradelines—also known as credit accounts—across states. Here they are from lowest to highest:

RankStateShare of Credit Card
Tradelines Delinquent (%)
1Iowa12.9
2Massachusetts13.9
3Hawaii13.9
4Rhode Island14.7
5Washington14.7
6Florida14.8
7New York14.9
8California15.1
9New Hampshire15.5
10Alaska15.6
11New Jersey15.6
12Colorado15.7
13Utah15.8
14Vermont16.1
15Montana16.1
16Illinois16.5
17Oregon16.6
18Idaho17.0
19Ohio17.5
20Connecticut17.8
21Maine18.0
22Nebraska18.1
23Wyoming18.1
24Maryland18.4
25Kansas18.4
26Wisconsin18.5
27Virginia18.7
28Nevada19.1
29South Dakota19.3
30Arizona19.8
31Minnesota19.8
32Pennsylvania20.2
33Michigan20.9
34North Dakota21.3
35Delaware21.4
36Missouri22.4
37New Mexico22.6
38Georgia23.1
39North Carolina24.0
40Indiana24.3
41Texas24.7
42West Virginia25.2
43Tennessee26.2
44South Carolina26.9
45Kentucky27.6
46Oklahoma28.2
47Arkansas30.1
48Alabama30.5
49Louisiana31.7
50Mississippi39.1

No state had credit delinquency rates of less than 10%, with Iowa coming the closest at 12.9%.

That puts Iowa ahead of wealthier states like Massachusetts (13.9%), Washington (14.7%), and New Hampshire (15.5%).

At the bottom end was Mississippi, which had 39% credit delinquency rates to end 2023. That’s well ahead of the next-lowest states Louisiana (31.7%) and Alabama (30.5%).

It’s notable that the American South had higher rates of delinquency almost across the board. The five states with the highest rates of credit card delinquency are all located in the southeastern region of the country, and Texas had a higher delinquency rate (25%) than other majorly populated states like Florida (14.8%) and New York (14.9%).

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