Senior Loan Officer Survey: Banks Tightening Standards

The Fed's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey asks banks whether their standards for approving credit card applications changed over the past three months. In the Q3 2026 survey, the share of banks reporting stricter standards minus the share reporting looser ones was 6.7%, so more banks tightened than eased. A year earlier the figure was 10.4%. The previous survey, Q2 2026, read 2%; the series is not adjusted for seasonal patterns, so part of a quarter-to-quarter move can be seasonal. It is the highest net percentage since Q3 2025.

The net percentage has been below its year-earlier reading for 11 quarters in a row.

Each survey asks about change, not about how strict standards are, and banks are told not to report a policy they kept as a change, however strict or loose it is. So a positive number means standards got stricter on net that quarter, even when it is smaller than before; standards loosen on net only when the number is below zero. About 45 banks answer the credit card question, so one bank is worth about 2 points. The Fed describes a net share of 0 to 5 as "basically unchanged," above 5 to 10 as modest, above 10 to 20 as moderate, above 20 and under 50 as significant, and 50 or more as major.

The question covers credit card approvals only. The same survey reports mortgages, auto loans and business loans separately, and asks about card terms such as credit limits and about loan demand in other questions. The panel is up to 80 large domestic banks, weighted toward the biggest, and the Fed added 20 banks to it in May 2012; credit unions and many specialized card issuers are not in it. The survey the Fed labels the third quarter is taken in July and covers roughly the second quarter. Credit card delinquency is tracked on its own page.