What this number actually is
TERMCBPER24NSis the Federal Reserve's asset-weighted average annual interest rate on 24-month unsecured personal loans at U.S. commercial banks, published quarterly as part of the G.19 Consumer Credit statistical release. The 24-month term has been the survey's fixed reference since 1972 — making this one of the longest continuous consumer credit pricing series the Fed maintains. Half a century of observations spanning every Fed cycle, every recession, and every credit shock since the Bretton Woods collapse.
The series captures commercial banks only — not credit unions, not online fintechs, not buy-now-pay-later providers. That narrowness is also its strength: the methodology has not drifted, so a 2026 print is directly comparable to a 1985 print.
How to use this number against your own loan offer
Compare your quoted personal loan rate to this average. Prime borrowers (typically FICO 720+, low debt-to-income, stable income) often receive offers a couple of points below this average, especially from online fintech lenders competing for prime customers. Borrowers in the middle of the credit distribution pay close to the average. Subprime borrowers pay several points above. If you have been quoted a rate dramatically higher than the G.19 average, it is usually a signal to widen the lender search or to first improve credit profile inputs before taking the loan.
The single most economically valuable use of a personal loan is consolidating credit-card debt. The spread between the 24-month personal loan rate and the average credit-card APR is typically 10 to 15 percentage points. On a $10,000 revolving balance, that spread compounds to several thousand dollars saved over a two-year payoff. Run the math on our credit-card payoff calculator and the personal loan calculator side by side.
How the personal loan rate connects to the broader picture
Personal loan rates are anchored to bank funding costs, which in turn are anchored to the federal funds rate plus a credit-risk premium. When the Fed hikes, banks raise their cost of capital and pass it through to consumer loan pricing within one to two quarters. When credit conditions tighten — when charge-off rates rise or when bank stress tests signal recession risk — the credit-risk premium widens and personal loan rates rise faster than the policy rate would suggest. Watching the spread between this series and the fed funds rate is one of the cleanest reads on consumer credit cycle stress.
For the auto-loan analog, see the auto loan rate tracker (G.19 also reports a 48-month new auto loan rate). For the housing analog, see 30-year mortgage rate history. For the full term structure of US consumer and government interest rates, the rates dashboard puts everything on one page.
Caveats
The G.19 series is commercial-bank-only, so it understates the rates many subprime borrowers face from non-bank lenders and overstates the rates many prime borrowers receive from online fintechs. The 24-month term is shorter than most real-world personal loans (which typically run 36 to 60 months) — longer terms generally price 0.5–1.5 percentage points higher. The series is not seasonally adjusted; small revisions to prior quarters are common as the Fed re-benchmarks the survey sample.