High risk borrowers are back in play for the credit card industry.  From today’s New York Times:

Credit card offers are surging again after a three-year slowdown, as banks seek to revive a business that brought them huge profits before the financial crisis wrecked the credit scores of so many Americans.

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Lenders are “tiptoeing their way back into the higher-risk pool of customers,” said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at SmartCredit.com.

In extending credit again to riskier borrowers, lenders are looking beyond standard credit scores, on the theory that some people who may seem to be equivalent credit risks on the surface may show differences in spending or other behavior — like registering on a job Web site — that suggest variations in their ability to keep up with payments.