Canadians are getting smarter about credit card debt

A report by Equifax Canada notes that Canadians paid down 3.4 per cent of their credit card debt last year by using their home equity lines of credit, according to the Toronto Star.

While Canadians’ level of consumer indebtedness remains at a record high, Equifax found that its rate of growth is at least slowing down.

Lewis Johnson, a finance professor at Queen’s University, calls this trend “an outbreak of rationality.”

“The more you can shift balances from a credit card where the rate is 24 per cent interest to a line of credit where it’s 3 or 4 per cent, the more able you are to pay,” Johnson said.