A plurality of survey responses found credit cards to be “unnecessary,” and only one in four plan on applying for a credit card in the future, according to data released today by LendEDU, a marketplace for lending products including credit cards and student loans.
The company surveyed 1,000 individuals who have never owned a credit card.
An interesting data point to consider from these results is that younger individuals, those between the ages of 21 and 34, are increasingly unlikely to obtain a credit card, even though building credit is considered to be so important at that stage of their lives.
Just about one in three individuals at that age group have a definite plan to obtain a credit card, according to the survey.
Worries about overspending are not what is keeping individuals from obtaining a credit card. More than 41% of respondents said credit cards are “unnecessary.” Just 15% said overspending or being afraid of having a credit card was keeping them from applying. The number of individuals who found them unnecessary rose when breaking out the data by the respondents’ credit score. For example, 44% of those with credit scores higher than 780 said credit cards were unnecessary, and 50% of those with scores between 661 and 720 said so, as well.
About one-third of respondents had no idea what their credit score was, and nearly 40% indicated that their score was below 600. Nearly 50% had annual income of less than $25,000.
