Lenders are courting risky credit-card borrowers more aggressively than they have since the financial crisis in a bid to jolt revenue in a period of sluggish growth and tight regulation.
Banks and other lenders issued 3.7 million credit cards to so-called subprime borrowers during the first quarter, a 39% jump from a year earlier and the most since 2008, according to data provided exclusively to The Wall Street Journal by credit bureau Equifax Inc. EFX +0.19%
About one-third of all credit cards issued in that period were to subprime customers, the biggest share in six years, according to Equifax.
“Lenders in general have really saturated the higher-credit-quality market, so it is only natural that as they look for growth opportunities, they expand downward,” said Randy Hopper, vice president of consumer lending at Navy Federal Credit Union, an institution based in Vienna, Va., that is the largest credit union in the U.S.