Credit Cards
Rates: 13.56 percent (standard fixed); 10.80 percent (standard variable)This week fixed interest rates rose while variable rates for new credit cardholders declined. For all fixed-rate cards, the average purchase rate increased 9 basis points while the variable rate slid down a point from last week to 10.75 percent. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
Looking at standard cards, the average fixed rate jumped to 13.56 percent, up 9 basis points from the previous survey. Variable rates sunk 4 basis points to 10.80 percent.
This week former Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney revised a prediction she made six months ago, that credit card issuers would slash at least $2 trillion in available credit lines within 18 months. In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, she called her previous estimate "optimistic," considering that banks cut $500 billion in credit limits in the fourth quarter of 2008. Her new forecast: that issuers will sever more than $2 trillion in credit limits by year's end, and $2.7 trillion total by the close of 2010.
You can find your best credit card deal -- by type -- at Bankrate's interactive tool.
-- Leslie McFadden