VantageScore：消费者信贷健康，贷款活动回升

Um, Silvio, it is great to have you here, and we appreciate the exclusive. We did just talk about consumers still shopping in May. That is one, as Tim mentioned, one read on how consumers are doing, but tell us about this latest edition of the credit gauge from your company. A great to be with you. Uh, Carol, Tim, again, and, uh, the data from our vintage credit gauge, which was been made exclusively available to Bloomberg, shows a very consistent pattern to what we saw in the consumer spending side through the end of May.

Consumer delinquencies, uh, overall early stage were 0.89% a year ago. They were substantially higher at 1%. So the overall consumer credit health of the of the American consumer is good and stable. And it's surprising, uh, given the fact that we see sustained inflation, sustained, uh, high interest rates, consumers were good. And we measure that by the average vantage or as well through the end of May, that was 701.

A low scores 300. The best score is 850. So overall the consumers healthy through the end of May. Silvia, why is that surprising to you? I mean, we certainly getting it from from other data. But but you said just now that, you know, you rattled off all the data. You said it's surprising the consumer is healthy, surprising the consumer is resilient. Why does that surprise you? Well, the reality is, is if you look at the overall macroeconomic stage, the reality is inflation.

Is this sustained. Interest rates are high. Um, housing costs are high. And so what we see in the face of all these challenges is the consumer remaining resilient and also rather disciplined. If you look at actually overall credit utilization, uh, overall credit utilization is down on a year over year basis. Uh, a year ago is over 50%. Uh, it's actually below that now at uh, 49%. So overall, consumers are disciplined and healthy.

Um, and if you look at the way banks are looking at the consumer, we also saw an increase in consumer lending. I'll give you example. Credit cards. Uh, the percentage of consumers with new credit card accounts through the end of May was at 3.6%. A year ago, it was at 3.3% in the personal loan category. The number of consumers with a new personal loan account was, at, uh, 3.4%. A year ago, it was a 2.75%. So really, on a broad basis, as we look through the end of May, the consumer is actually very healthy and disciplined in the light of these economic headwinds.

Silvia, when do we know that? So it sounds like people are tapping more personal loans and more credit on credit cards or access. So when does that turn into actually a worrisome sign that people are tapping more borrowing, if you will, in different ways? Well, what may be behind that personal loan increase number is the fact that Consumers have sticker shock on their credit card. Uh, interest rates, they're very high.

And some of them are rationally. Um, refinancing their consumer debt by entering into personal loans. Now, to answer your question directly, you know, one of the great things to do is look back at at the past as an indicator for the future. And what we saw in 2008, before the great financial crisis, is consumers dramatically increasing the amount of credit cards they had and then immediately going delinquent on those loans.

We are not seeing that now. Instead, what we're seeing is the delinquency rates stabilizing to lowering on a year over year basis. And consumers doing everything they can to have dry powder available in their credit lines but not utilizing them. Um, and so that's what we see in the credit utilization rate. So again, overall a rational consumer a healthy consumer. And that is great news for the overall economy. We're speaking to Silvio Tavares the CEO and president of Vantage score.

Joining us from from San Francisco. So for people who aren't familiar with that score and maybe sort of just understand, uh, their own credit scores, but not an amalgamation of three different credit rating firms, explain how your data is different and how you try to offer a different view of the consumer and what data you use. Yes. Well, that's one of the unique things about vintage gear. We are the nation's leading credit scoring company.

As you referenced, we are an independent company, but our owners are the three national credit bureaus TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. And as a result, we have unique and unparalleled, unparalleled access to consumer, uh, credit data. You know, sometimes the consumer says in a pull something different than the way they actually behave. We actually look at the actual credit data. And so all the statistics I was sharing with you, they're based on actual consumer behavior.

And that gives us a high level of confidence in the business credit gauge that we publish every single month. And uh, on Wednesday the full analysis will be published and I'm sharing those insights with you early today. It's really exciting, though, to see the the stabilization of the consumer. That being said, we are looking at mortgage. That's a big part of the economy. Um, the good news in this analysis is that the percentage of consumers with new mortgages was at 0.35%.

That's matches the highest level that we've had, uh, this year. And so the other key thing is, despite higher interest rates, consumers are actually wading back into the market and getting new mortgages. And we're a big part of that. We were recently accepted for mortgages by the major, uh, mortgage, uh, government sponsored entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Really exciting to see, uh, largest mortgage lenders like Penny Mac, Rocket Mortgage, um, United Wholesale Mortgage, all those companies using vantage more to enable more access to mortgages for more creditworthy Americans.

Yeah, I remember Bill Pulte mentioning this a little under a year ago in a way, to get Americans to to increase homeownership. Is that is it going to work? It's happening now. Um, we're seeing the largest mortgage lenders using Vonage score to qualify and pre-qualify consumers and then underwriting those mortgages. Um, there are now over a hundred mortgage lenders that have signed up to use Vantage Court for mortgages.

Uh, it's really, really exciting. Um, we anticipate that over the next 12 months, two things will happen. Millions of creditworthy consumers that are going to get their first chance at home ownership. We estimate that to be about $1 trillion in incremental mortgages. Uh, but the other key thing is our mortgage credit score is substantially more cost effective for lenders. And so the mortgage lenders are going to save about $1 billion over the next 12 months.

So it's really hard to typically deliver that incremental mortgage activity at a lower cost. But we're doing it and we're very, very excited for both the mortgage lenders and the American consumer.