Credit card default rates fell last month, but recent improvements in getting late payers to catch up slowed down instead.
According to the Associated Press, the major banks all said that charge-offs fell in September to the lowest level of 2010. Charge-offs usually represent accounts that are more than six months behind — or in other words, good bankruptcy candidates!
Citi and Bank of America had the most improvement last month, after having the worst balance sheets for the year as a whole. Capital One, on the other hand, went the other way, with a September increase in defaults.
The credit card charge-off rate was a whopping 10.66% in the second quarter of this year. A typical rate before the recession hit was about 3 percent.
By Doug Beaton