{"id":78843,"date":"2025-08-18T14:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T14:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78843\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T14:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T14:02:11","slug":"canadians-missed-credit-card-payment-equifax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78843\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadians missed credit card payment: Equifax"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 There\u2019s a deepening divide among consumers, even as the rate of missed credit payments dipped, a new Equifax Canada report<\/a> shows. <\/p>\n

It shows 1.4 million Canadians missed a credit payment in the second quarter. While that\u2019s up by 118,000 compared with the same time last year, it\u2019s down slightly from the first quarter. <\/p>\n

Rebecca Oakes, vice-president of advanced analytics at Equifax Canada, said it\u2019s \u201ca bit of good news\u201d to see the delinquency rate levelling off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting to finally see that stabilize a little bit,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe less good news, though, is that below that high level number, we\u2019re still seeing this financial gap widening for some groups of consumers,\u201d she added, particularly between homeowners and non-homeowners. <\/p>\n

About one in 19 Canadians without a mortgage missed at least one credit payment, compared with one in 37 homeowners, the report said. <\/p>\n

Total consumer debt rose 3.1 per cent year-over-year to $2.58 trillion, Equifax said, while average non-mortgage debt per consumer increased to $22,147.<\/p>\n

Oakes said various factors, including high unemployment and economic uncertainty \u2014 amplified by trade disruptions \u2014 have made it harder for many Canadians to keep up with day-to-day expenses. <\/p>\n

Consumers under the age of 36 are being hit the hardest, the report suggests.<\/p>\n

Millennials and gen Z saw their average non-mortgage debt rise two per cent to $14,304 from a year ago. The group\u2019s 90-plus days non-mortgage balance delinquency rate also rose to 2.35 per cent \u2014 a 19.7 per cent jump year-over-year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe affordability crisis seems to be hitting younger consumers the hardest,\u201d Oakes said. \u201cBetween rising costs, employment uncertainty, and limited access to affordable credit, many are struggling just to stay afloat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, many homeowners who locked in lower mortgage rates during the height of the pandemic could see their payments rise upon renewal. <\/p>\n

\u201cPayment levels are going up for many consumers when they\u2019re renewing their mortgage and when that is a little bit too much, the first place you tend to see that is (missed payments) on things like credit cards,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ontario remained the hot spot for financial distress in the second quarter. The 90-plus day delinquency rate was 1.75 per cent, which is 15.2 basis points higher than the national average, the report said. <\/p>\n

The rates of missed payments were even higher in the city of Toronto and the surrounding area, which are exposed to the tariff-hit auto and steel sectors. <\/p>\n

However, Oakes said the financial gap between homeowners versus non-homeowners in Ontario peaked last year and has started to come down.<\/p>\n

Another credit-tracking agency, TransUnion, released its second-quarter consumer credit report last week.<\/p>\n

It said consumer debt reached $2.52 trillion in the second quarter, up 4.4 per cent year-over-year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSubprime consumers are more likely to feel the impact of higher costs of living and may choose to take on additional debt, such as credit card balances, to help cover the costs of goods and services,\u201d Matthew Fabian, director of financial services research and consulting at TransUnion Canada, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor other risk tiers of borrowers, their card balance growth has been less than the rate of inflation, indicating that these consumers are less reliant on credit cards to maintain purchasing power,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2025.<\/p>\n

Ritika Dubey, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 There\u2019s a deepening divide among consumers, even as the rate of missed credit payments dipped, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-78843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}