Reliance on Cards

Margin trading is regulated by the Federal Reserve, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and securities exchanges, and many brokerage firms have margin requirements that are stricter than what regulators require. The loans are generally made by securities firms to investors and use financial assets such as stocks and bonds as collateral.Consumers have been increasing their reliance on credit cards to pay for staples such as groceries, said Silvio Tavares, senior vice president of global information and analytics at First Data Corp., a payments processor that tracks trends among payment types. Consumers spent 6.8 percent more on their credit cards at food and beverage stores in August compared with a year earlier, he said.

“There are small but important indicators that there might be an increase in unsustainable credit-card debt,” said Plunkett of the Consumer Federation.