20 Shocking facts about credit and debt.

1.  The total U.S. outstanding revolving debt was $870.4 billion as of April, 2014.

2.  The average value of a credit card transaction in the U.S. is $94.

3.  37 percent of small-businesses say their businesses have relied on credit cards to meet capital needs in the 12 months.

4.  80 percent of business cards included an “any time” clause which gives the bank issuers the right to change account terms at any time with little or no notice and the cardholder cannot opt out.

5.  Consumers are holding fewer credit cards.  The average number of credit cards held by cardholders at the end of 2009 was 3.7.  The average number of credit cards consumers had in 2012 was 1.96.

6.  60 percent of college seniors have a credit card.

7.  The most popular credit cards are MasterCard and Visa, by far. MasterCard has 180 million cards in the United States and 551 million cards in the rest of the world.  Visa has 278 million cards in the United States and 522 million cards in the rest of the world.

8.  86 percent of low and middle-income households who incurred expenses resulting from unemployment took on credit card debt as a result.

9.  The states with the highest amount of average credit card debt are Alaska ($7,045), Colorado ($5,728), North Carolina ($5,619) and Connecticut ($5,532).  The states with the lowest amount of average credit card debt are Iowa ($3,874), North Dakota ($4,006), Wisconsin ($4,252) and South Dakota ($4,257).

10.  MasterCard and Visa are also the biggest credit cards by volume, with U.S. $534 billion and $981 billion in purchases in 2012, respectively.

11.  Nearly half of low- and middle-income households carried debt from out of pocket medical expenses on their credit cards.

12.  The charge-off rate on credit cards from top 100 banks was 3.87 percent as of 2013.

13.  33 percent of adults do not pay all of their bills on time as of 2012, up from 28 percent in 2011.

14.  The average Annual Percentage Rate on credit card with a balance on it was 13.14 as of February 2014.

15.  The national average FICO score was 646 and the national median FICO score was 723 as of July 2013.

16.  85 percent of college students don’t know their credit score

17.  The first national general-use credit card that allowed balances to be paid over time was the BankAmericard, issued in 1958.  In 1977 they changed their name to Visa.

18.  MasterCard began in 1966, when a number of banks formed the Interbank Card Association. In 1969, the Interbank Card Association bought the rights to use "Master Charge" from the California Bank Association. It was renamed MasterCard in 1979.

19.  Unauthorized credit card transactions made up 0.037 percent, or 37 out of every 1,000, credit card transactions in 2012.

20.  Law enforcement agencies received more than 1.8 million financial complaints in 2011: 55 percent were fraud complaints; 15 percent were identity theft complaints; and 30 percent other types of complaints.

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Thanks to CreditCards.com, StatisticBrain, and BankRate.com for the data!