Consumer Credit: The Next Crisis

The degree to which consumers have come to depend on easy, inexpensive credit is a far greater threat to the economy than most realize. To pay it off, the average U.S. consumer would have to hand over every penny of his take-home pay for 16 months. And in all that time he wouldn't be able to buy anything else--no clothes, food, coffee, nothing. Okay, so no one is going to do that. But what will people do? Individual decisions to cut back on consumption--or perhaps run up the credit cards to the max and then declare bankruptcy--will translate in the aggregate into tremendous volatility and risk for the companies customers buy (or suddenly stop buying) from. In fact, warn investment banker Jarvis and Wharton professor MacMillan, the profits and cash flows of nearly all U.S. companies are built directly or indirectly on consumer spending, and the connection is not always obvious. How many loyal supermarket customers are quietly opting to pay for their food with their credit cards rather than their debit cards? How many consumers will tap their home-equity lines of credit to pay for their next vacation? How many companies are unaware of their indirect connection to these debt-laden consumers through their distributors, retailers, and financial institutions? Those directly involved in the credit industry itself should be bracing for record numbers of bankruptcies. Those companies, like the auto dealers, that finance consumer purchases directly should be working flat out to reduce their dependence stream. And any company whose customers--or whose customers' customers--pay with credit need to be bolstering their reserves, now. The authors detail a tool that will let you measure the level of your company's exposure to consumer credit, analyze how sensitive your firm is to sudden changes in default rates, and determine what steps you can take to mitigate your risk. Managers that ignore the warning signs and leave their company vulnerable have only themselves to blame.

• Consumer behavior
• Consumer markets
• Consumer credit
• Risk analysis