8/14/2015 – 13 Years Of American Credit Cards, In 1 Graph (NPR)

A few years back, there wasn’t that much variation on the rates that credit card companies offered consumers. If you had good credit, you probably paid 8 percent interest. If your credit wasn’t so good, you paid 16 percent. But eventually, card issuers became more sophisticated in their use of data, according to Ben Woolsey, president of CreditCardForum.com. Today, instead of lumping lots of people into a few buckets, card companies offer lots of different rates. Consumers also realized that rates could vary more and began to shop around.

Read the full article in NPR.