Getting your player ready...
NEW YORK — Fierce competition for top-tier credit-card customers appears to be leading some banks to look elsewhere for new business: borrowers with spotty credit histories.
Data show that more new cards went to consumers with less-than-stellar credit scores in the third quarter.
In the three months ended Sept. 30, credit-reporting agency TransUnion found that 25.2 percent of the new card accounts went to consumers with scores below 700.
That translates into almost a quarter million more cards going to consumers who have had some trouble with credit.
And since the overall number of cards opened during the quarter was essentially flat from a year ago, that means those were cards that did not go to more creditworthy consumers.
