Banking media firm SNL Financial reports that the nation’s largest credit card issuers reported fewer late payments in December, with a 0.8% drop in delinquency rates from the prior month.
Citigroup’s delinquency rates were 1.73%.
American Express reported delinquencies at 1.16%.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. saw a 0.6% decrease in delinquencies to 1.56%.
Discover Financial Services' delinquencies fell to 1.55% from 1.60%.
Bank of America Corp.'s delinquency rate declined to 2.30% from 2.34%.
Capital One Financial Corp.'s delinquency rate went down to 2.76% from 2.81%.
"Credit quality and loan balances have trended modestly better than our expectations for the quarter.," noted Sanjay Sakhrani, analyst with C Keefe Bruyette & Woods.
Sakhrani reported "solid ending loan growth," especially in U.S. cards. But the analyst remains wary of the growth trend, considering the paydowns after the holiday season.
"One item to note is that there will be a mild headwind to provision expense related to the accounting impacts of certain pools of acquired private student loans that are performing worse than expectations," the analyst wrote to investors in a Jan. 15 note.