Report
Q1 2026 Credit Industry Insights
Gen Z Drives Canada’s Credit Growth as Delinquencies Begin to Stabilize
Q1 2026 Report highlights include:
- Credit delinquencies showed signs of stabilizing amid a more stable economic environment
- Mortgage balances continued to climb, while delinquency rates returned to pre-pandemic levels
- Regional delinquency trends highlight diverging risk profiles across the provinces
Gen Z is emerging as the fastest growing and most dynamic segment in the Canadian credit market. As more Gen Z consumers enter the financial ecosystem and become credit eligible, growth in credit demand and supply, coupled with notable year-over-year (YoY) improvements in credit performance, has supported this trend.
90+ Day Delinquency Rate YoY Changes for All Product Loans*
*Measured in basis points.
Average Consumer Balance, by Product*
*Represents the average balance held by a consumer across each type of product (consumers can have multiple instances of same product).
“The Canadian credit market is transitioning to a phase of stabilizing risk, with signs of normalization. While Gen Z remains the highest-risk cohort, they have shown the strongest year-over-year improvement in credit performance, signaling promising credit health. This creates an opportunity for lenders to shift from broad risk mitigation to targeted growth, particularly in high-demand segments like Gen Z.”
- Matthew Fabian, Director of Financial Services Research and Consulting at TransUnion Canada
About the TransUnion CIIR Report
TransUnion Canada’s quarterly Credit Industry Insights Report provides in-depth, statistical information drawn from its national consumer credit database (of more than 30 million files profiling nearly every credit-active consumer in Canada). It summarizes data and trends for the national population overall, as well as breakdowns within consumer credit score risk tiers, and provides insights on the Canadian consumer lending industry. By leveraging the Industry Insights Report, institutions across industries can analyze market dynamics throughout an entire business cycle, helping understand consumer behaviour over time. It provides account-level and consumer-level views of key metrics and trends — over the nine most recent quarters — and considers major consumer lending categories: credit cards, personal loans, auto loans, home loans, and lines of credit while also looking at aggregate views of all revolving lines of credit and non-revolving loans.
Complete the form to receive the summary
We're sorry, your request failed. Please try again in a few moments.