After several years of decline, new research suggests that what was a downward trend for Australian consumers searching for credit cards has been reversed and is now experiencing a post-pandemic bounce.
Search volume has recovered to levels last seen in 2019 for 62 of the 110 keywords included in a study published by credit card comparison website Finty.
Travel-related keywords experienced the largest year-on-year increase, which is hardly surprising given Covid restrictions on domestic and international flights.
The number of consumers searching for balance transfers increased from 2021 to 2022, but interest is still much lower than in 2019 when nearly twice as many balance transfer searches were carried out.
Overall there were fewer searches for credit cards in 2022 (331,509) than in 2019 (482,095).
So although the overall number of searches for credit cards rebounded strongly from 2021 to 2022, it’s not quite back to business as usual.
Since this trend comes when the cost of living has been increasing, it may hint at what’s to come for the Australian economy.
David Boyd, Managing Director at Finty, thinks the two are related.
“There is a very clear increase in the number of people searching for travel and rewards-related cards, but we think there is also a correlation with the increased cost of living and people starting to feel the squeeze in their finances.”
Given that the strongest volume growth was for credit cards with rewards points and travel-related benefits, at least some of the rebound may simply be down to years of pent-up demand to travel.
Are consumers turning to credit cards to make ends meet? It’s probably too early to say definitively.
But with the RBA set to hike rates further and family budgets already squeezed, this trend looks set to continue for the foreseeable future.
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