Canadians paying down debt faster: Equifax
Posted January 24, 2013 10:02 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The lure of short-term credit can be hard to resist, but it looks like we are getting better about it.
A report out today that finds Canadians are becoming more careful about borrowing money.
In its National Credit Trends study, Equifax says we’re not only paying off our debt faster, but the number of us who have defaulted on loans in the past 90 days is down to a new low, too.
But Scott Hannah with the Credit Counselling Society says debt is just one side of the coin. “Most of us are not saving enough for our retirement and given that we’re an aging population with likely future increases [and] budget constraints, it will make it difficult for us so there’s a real need for us to pay down our debt now so we can start to address our savings.”
“If we put all of our excess resources toward paying down debt, when we have an expense that comes out of the blue, we turn to our credit or credit cards to deal with that,” he adds.
The quarterly report looked at credit habits from last October through December, including loans, debts, and repayment.
