Credit Cards
Rates: 13.29 percent (standard fixed); 10.89 percent (standard variable)While average interest rates for fixed-rate cards didn't change, variable interest rates rose this week. For all fixed-rate cards, the average APR stayed at 12.09 percent but for variable-rate cards, increased 8 basis points to 10.71 percent. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
Standard-fixed cards again charged 13.29 percent, but standard-variable interest rates moved up 2 basis points to 10.89 percent.
The number of banks cutting credit limits dropped over the past quarter, but lending remains tight. Around 35 percent of banks reduced the credit limits of existing borrowers, according to the January Senior Loan Officer Survey from the Federal Reserve. The October survey found that about 60 percent of banks lowered the lines of subprime cardholders.
Almost 55 percent of banks approved fewer accounts that didn't satisfy their minimum credit score requirement, down slightly from 60 percent in the October survey.
-- Leslie McFadden