Helping your members through the crisis with credit line increases

The pandemic has impacted American financial consumers in painful and unexpected ways. As COVID-19 continues to spread across the country with no end in sight, workers are struggling to maintain their income in the face of layoffs and furloughs. Even among those that have maintained employment, many face pay cuts and a partial loss of income. It’s no wonder 47% of Americans are carrying more credit card debt during the crisis.

More worrisome, tens of millions of unemployed workers are facing a potential “income cliff” as the federal pandemic unemployment insurance program is scheduled to end in a matter of days. (At the time of this writing, Congress was negotiating the next pandemic relief package, which may include an extension of unemployment benefits.)

Yet, despite these perils confronting many American financial consumers, several major card issuers including, Discover, Wells Fargo, and Synchrony Bank have signaled they would slash credit lines to limit card losses and protect their institutions and shareholders.

Like adding salt to the wound, a credit line reduction hurts the cardholder in several ways:

 

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