Recession recovery in hands of top banks?

December 1, 2008 | By Jim Kim

According to Meredith Whitney, analysts at Oppenheimer, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup collectively represent more than half of all credit card lines outstanding, and they are under big pressure to scale back. In a note to clients, she writes, "We expect available consumer liquidity in the form of credit-card lines to decline by 45 percent." And that's going to keep a lid on consumer spending, which is of course the key to any economic recovery. This comes at a time when banks are also being forced to scale back on home equity lines and other forms of credit, Reuters notes. She also notes, somewhat ominously, that the credit card market seems to be 18 months behind the mortgage market and will begin to shrink by mid-2010.

For more:
- here's the Reuters article