You may not be asking for more credit—but your bank’s systems could be giving it to you anyway. New research from King’s Business School and the Federal Reserve Board suggests that a largely unseen force may be pushing household balances higher: bank-initiated credit-limit increases.

In their study , the researchers that roughly four in five credit-limit increases in the United States are initiated by banks , rather than requested by consumers.

According to the researchers, these automatic increases account for more than $40 billion in additional available credit every quarter, with most of it extended to customers who already carry balances.

Even though they did not actually request an increase, borrowers largely end up using the extra credit. The paper found that revolving balance

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