Business

Declines in credit card charge-offs
by Magdalena Rosova

December data for U.S. credit card showed that fewer consumers were falling behind in their payments. In the latest report six companies reported credit card activity for December. Four of them reported charge-offs decline. Furthermore, delinquency rates fell at all of the companies except JPMorgan Chase & Co. Jason Arnold, analyst at RBC Capital Markets said that December was one of transitional months and therefore he and other analysts as well did not expect the following months to continue in improvement. JPMorgen, which is the biggest issuer of VISA credit cards, said that its charge-offs fell to 7.11 percent in December. In November it was 8.81 percent. Citigroup, the largest MasterCard issuer said charge-offs fell from 10.29 percent in November to 9.56 percent. American largest credit card company American Express Co also reported its seventh straight monthly decline. Credit card charge-offs are usually connected with the unemployment U.S. In December the un! employment rate was 10 percent and about 85 thousand people lost their jobs, which denies the previous expectation that the labor market was stabilizing. However, Bank of America and Capital One Financial Corp reported increase in charge offs. Out of the six companies Bank of America had the biggest default rates. Capital One, the company wit the second highest charge-offs rate also reported that the credit card accounts that were delinquent at least 30 days fell from 5.87 to 5.78. JPMorgan reported deep loan losses in fourth-quarter and consequently its shares fell 2 percent. Amid a broad drop in financial stocks the shares of the other five financial companies fell as well.

by Magdalena Rosova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new r! eal-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest ne! ws right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 7:39 AM