This makes the process more efficient and less risky for lenders, which at the margin should counsel them to offer higher limits to more marginal customers than they'd otherwise be comfortable with. But those limits "mean less" than many people might assume they do.
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You'll note that "Ahah, they are trying to trick you into spending more than you can afford" is a very different narrative from "Ahah, they are hoping you concentrate more of your transactions on them this month, pay back quickly, and come back for more next month."
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There exists a heterogeneity of strategies and a wide distribution in customer behavior. Some banks (and some products at a particular bank) might be caricatured as being more of the first, and some more of the second. And some are both, for different people.
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Financially unsophisticated people, including very smart financially unsophisticated people, often believe "Banks can't make any money from you if you are a responsible user of credit. They want you to get in over your head." This is false as stated.
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Banks sell financial services. Sometimes the pricing is a little opaque to the end user, because it is subsidized by someone else. If you consume a lot of financial services, and banks are eagerly courting your business, it is *probably not* because they're bad at math.
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A concrete example: which of the following two customers is more lucrative? A: Spends $10k. This strains them; they can pay back the minimums, but it will take them years to pay off, at a 15% APR the whole while. B: Spends $10k monthly. Never pays a cent in interest.
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Answer: depends *almost entirely* on what it cost the bank to acquire and keep B's business, because B is *printing money* via interchange. A contributes about ~$1.3k of revenue per year (plus $200~$300 in month 1). B contributes about $2.5~$3k annually.
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(Should insert a *plausibly* before "contributes" because there are actually a lot of different interchange rates the issuer could be receiving depending on product, jurisdiction, card brand, regulation, etc, and I should clarify "I'm being very handwavy on math here.")
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End of conversation
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