“Why would firms go out there and take a big swing on risk?” said Brett Ryan, a senior U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank.

Smaller banks have been competing aggressively for new card customers, helping delinquencies on those loans spike to 6.3%, compared with 2.4% for accounts tied to the 100 largest lenders, according to Fed data.

Some bank research analysts are now raising more questions about how any weakness among consumers will affect finance companies. JPMorgan equity analysts said they were turning more conservative on firms including Ally Financial Inc. and Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc., citing a potential economic slowdown and signs of weaker labor markets.

Wage growth has been strong for much of the last year, but it’s since slowed to its lowest level in more than a year, to about 2.9%.

‘More Cautious’
Some corporate executives are also growing more wary. Gene Lee, chief executive officer of Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants Inc., said in a conference call last month that “there’s some uncertainty entering into the consumer” despite strong wage growth and employment.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc.‘s CEO Sandra Cochran said last month that the company had turned “more cautious” on consumer demand as they begin to feel the effects of tariffs and higher gas prices.

UBS Group AG analysts said they’re growing worried about lower-income consumers who are showing signs of weakness in an otherwise strong market. A survey conducted by the bank found that debt burdens for many of those households have grown, and more are reporting credit problems like loan application rejections.

Of the people surveyed, 21% said their mortgage loan applications aren’t completely accurate, up 2 percentage points from a year ago. That’s a sign that banks’ credit tightening is “substantial enough to require some consumers to falsify part of their loan application,” the analysts wrote. And fewer households reported that their financial condition had improved in recent months.

About 44% of consumers are not meeting their expenses, the UBS report showed. That’s just a tick above the level a year ago but still the highest in five years.

“This is a two-tier economy,” said Matthew Mish, a credit strategist at UBS.