Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an accelerating pace as delinquencies and defaults rose by double-digit percentages in the last year, according to an Associated Press analysis.
The analysis found the greatest rise was among accounts more than 90 days in arrears.
Experts say these signs of the failing finances of many households are partly because of the subprime mortgage crisis and could spell more trouble ahead for an already sputtering economy.
"Debt eventually leaks into other areas, whether it starts with the mortgage and goes to the credit card or vice versa," said Cliff Tan, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and an expert on credit risk. "We're starting to see leaks now."
The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to 17.3 billion U.S. dollars in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP. That represented more than 4 percent of the total outstanding principal balances owed to the trusts on credit cards that were issued by banks such as Bank of America and Capital One and for retailers like Home Depot and Wal-Mart.
At the same time, defaults rose 18 percent to almost 961 million dollars in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Serious delinquencies also are up sharply as some of the nation's biggest lenders — including Advanta, GE Money Bank and HSBC — reported increases of 50 percent or more in the value of accounts that were at least 90 days delinquent when compared with the same period a year ago.
The AP analyzed data representing about 325 million individual accounts held in trusts that were created by credit card issuers in order to sell the debt to investors — similar to how many banks packaged and sold subprime mortgage loans. Together, they represent about 45 percent of the 920 billion dollars the Federal Reserve counts as credit card debt owed by Americans.
Source: Xinhua/Agencies
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