Carolyn Said writes for the San Francisco Chronicle about the growth in "taxpayer ID mortgage loans" being granted on the basis of the applicant's taxpayer ID, not Social Security Numbers. So called "undocumented immigrants" often have taxpayer ID's - issued by the IRS to both resident and non-resident aliens - but not SSNs. Said reports that "in California, Wells Fargo and Citibank both offer taxpayer ID mortgage loans, albeit in small programs."

Ruth Simon of the Wall St. Journal takes a comprehensive look at the current state of home equity lending and what some banks are doing to keep their home equity lending business growing with promotions, special deals, etc. in the face of higher interest rates. This has become a big business for banks as "balances on home-equity lines of credit have climbed 71% to $543.2 billion over the last two years."

David Wyss reports for Business Week on last week's release of the Federal Reserve's triennial Survey of Consumer Finances.

The AP reports on Federal Reserve's report that 2005 saw the smallest growth in consumer revolving debt in 23 years, rising just 2.6 percent for the year. Revolving debt actually fell by 1.4 percent on an annualized basis for December 2005.

Experian and the Gallup Organization have announced the latest monthly findings from their monthly survey of consumers regarding their views on credit. 65 percent of consumers say they are "very likely" to reduce their credit card debt in 2006. Another 19 percent say they are "somewhat" likely to do that. Consumers are less optimistic that they will reduce their overall level of debt -- just 47 percent say they are "very likely" to make that goal, while another 25 percent are "somewhat likely" to do so.

Fidelity Information Services and First Data Corporation have announced a strategic alliance agreement through which First Data's credit card processing capabilities will be integrated with home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) serviced on Fidelity's industry-leading Mortgage Servicing Package (MSP) software.

Kirsten Downey writes for the Washington Post on new guidelines from federal banking regulators regarding home equity lending.

Ted Griffith reports for the Gannett News Service on how revolving credit card users are using home equity loans to pay down their credit card debt.

Business Week reports on the increasing tendency of consumers to tap home equity loans or lines of credit to pay off their credit card outstandings.

Growth in credit-card receivables -- what card holders owe -- has slipped to low single digits for issuers in the last couple of years, and some industry watchers think the trend is here to stay.

"The logic of borrowing at 3% to 7% on a home-equity loan compared to 13% on a credit card is too powerful to ignore," says Morgan Stanley analyst Kenneth A. Posner.

Note: Tom Brown of Bankstocks.com includes a link to Posner's report on home equity lending (done in conjunction with Betsy Graseck) in this weblog posting