What is a Sub-Prime Borrower?

According to Experian's State of the Automotive Finance Market Report for the first quarter of 2014, scores are divided into five categories of ranges. 740 and up puts your score in the "Super Prime" category. 730-680 is "Prime" and 679-620 is "Non-Prime".  That leaves all other consumers in the "Sub-Prime" category with 550 and under being described as "Deep Sub-Prime". According to their Open Loans by Risk report, over 21 percent of all open loans are below prime, with deep sub-prime lending being the highest growing category of open loans. The average credit score of an auto financing customer dropped 10 points from the first quarter of 2013 from 731 to 721. In summary, more lenders are willing to take chances with sub-prime borrowers as more and more consumers are falling into that category. According to Credit-Report-101, the national average FICO credit score as of 2014 in the US is 639, which would place the average national consumer in the "Non-Prime" category.