Canadians have made a small dent in reducing their debt load.
On a year-over-year basis, the average Canadian consumer’s total debt—excluding their mortgage—declined by 0.42% to $27,368 at the end of 2013.
In the fourth quarter of last year, debt increased marginally to $27,368 from $27,355 in the third quarter.
“We generally observe increases in total debt during the fourth quarter because of the holiday shopping season,” says Tom Higgins, TransUnion’s vice president of analytics and decisioning services. “Total debt in in the fourth quarter remained essentially flat, which means Canadians may have begun potentially deleveraging, utilizing less credit this past holiday season.
The average consumer debt load dropped in Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto over the past year. The only city that saw an increase was Vancouver.
“It’s encouraging to see significant drops in debt for most of the major markets in Canada,” said Higgins. “Vancouver is an outlier in this scenario, but it should be noted that their unemployment rate—a major driver in consumer spending—is much lower than what is observed in other larger cities such as Toronto and Montreal.”
Related articles: