VALANTEX primarily serves the consumer lending industry.  We distinguish consumer lending from the more general 'banking' business, as the latter includes commercial lending and asset gathering which are very different businesses.

Industry Loan Growth

Revolving loan growth picked up steam from an abysmal level in the second half of 2004.  After sinking to below 1 1/2%, growth improved to over 4% by year end. Click here for a 5-year view of monthly results, or here for a 20-year view of quarterly results.

Having not seen the same decline as revolving, non-revolving loan growth rates continued a modest rate of decline through 2004. Click here for a 5-year view of monthly results, or here for a 20-year view of quarterly results.

Interest Rates

With the Fed tapping the brakes, short term rates continue to climb. 10-year treasuries have barely budged. Click here for a chart of short, medium and long rates.

This rate pattern favors mortgage lenders as their cost of capital tracks closely (90% correlation) with 10-year treasuries. Credit card lenders appear to be passing on higher costs. Click here for a chart of mortgage, auto, and card rate trends.

Industry Participants

There are a large number of companies in the U.S. engaged directly in the business of lending money to consumers. We divide these into primary and secondary lenders.  The central focus of primary lenders is lending. The central focus of  secondary lenders is the sale of merchandise.  Note that some of the largest consumer lenders in the U.S. are secondary lenders.  GM, Ford, and GE all own significant consumer loan portfolios.

VALANTEX segments 541 publicly owned primary lenders based on market capitalization - Very Large (>$20B), Large (>$1 to $20B), Medium ($100M to $1B), and Small (<$100M).  Click the segment name for a list of companies with market capitalization.  We include all banks in these lists even though some of them are only minimally engaged in consumer lending.