Average Retail Credit Card’s Interest Rate Surges To 26% — Despite Fed Cuts

Shopping for bargains at discount stores makes financial sense, so long as one isn’t running up a tab on a store-branded credit card with an exorbitant interest rate. While the Federal Reserve recently cut interest rates again in a bid to boost U.S. economic activity by lowering borrowing costs, that easy money mindset is not being shared by issuers of retail credit cards. The average store card’s annual percentage rate, or APR, is now 26.01%, up 0.37 percentage points from a year ago and almost five whole percentage points higher than the average overall credit card APR of 21.1%, according to a report out Thursday. Store-only cards’ average APR climbed 0.29 percentage points, or 29 basis points in banker parlance, to 27.52% this year, while the average co-branded card APR is slightly lower at 23.39%, up 33 basis points from 2018, a review of 88 cards from 64 retailers by CreditCards.com found. Read more at CBS News.