Another Sign of Recovery: Credit Card Mail Solicitations Increase 83%

Look no further than your own mailbox to see that the rebound in the credit card industry is underway.

According to a recent study by Synovate Mail Monitor, households in the United States received 640.3 million credit card offers during the second quarter of 2010. This was an 83% increase over the 349.1 million offers mailed during the same quarter in 2009. Several issuers showed very significant increases in volume during the April-June period: Chase quadrupled their mailings and Citi nearly tripled their solicitations.

This increase in mailings follows a 29% jump during the first quarter of the year (481.3 million offers versus 372.4 million).

For the first six months of 2010, there have been 1.12 billion credit card offers sent through the mail. During the entire year of 2009, there were 1.39 billion offers.

“This is an indication that the financial outlook for credit card issuers has improved dramatically. Defaults and delinquencies continue to decline, and they have put new policies in place, as well as some increased rates and fees. They are one again aggressively pursuing new customers, but this time around, they seem to really be focusing on those with good or excellent credit scores,” says Bill Hardekopf, CEO of LowCards.com and author of The Credit Card Guidebook.

In addition to increased mailings, issuers are using incentives to get potential cardholders to sign up for their credit card. 71% of these mail solicitations contain an introductory offer, the highest percentage in the 22 years of Synovate tracking this data. A number of these introductory offers have 0% APR for a certain number of months.

While these credit card mail solicitation figures are hefty increases over the previous year levels, they are substantially below the record 1.58 billion mailings sent during the third quarter of 2005.

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About the Author: Bill Hardekopf

Bill Hardekopf is the CEO of LowCards.com a free, independent website that simplifies the confusion of shopping for credit cards and helps consumers easily compare cards in a variety of categories.

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