(Preparing us for a 'reset' of the economy, including forgiving some/all credit card debt...?)

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Thursday August 30 1:43 PM ET

More Americans Fall Behind on Credit Card Payments

NEW YORK (Reuters) - More Americans fell behind in their credit card payments in July, reflecting the tough economic climate and a spike in bankruptcy filings, bond rating service Moody's Investors Service said on Thursday.

Credit card delinquency rate, on account balance 30 days past due, rose to 5.06 percent last month, up from 4.41 percent in June, which was the eighth straight month in which the delinquency rate rose from a year ago, Moody's said.

The rising delinquency rate coincided with a slowdown in consumer spending, which has kept the economy afloat as Corporate America has been struggling.

The government reported early Thursday that U.S. consumer spending grew at its slowest pace in nine months in July, edging up 0.1 percent to a $7.085 trillion annual rate.

This hiccup among American consumers, along with a spike in bankruptcy filings, has forced credit card issuers to write off more bad card loans in July.

Moody's credit card chargeoff index rose for a sixth consecutive month to 6.47 percent from 5.16 percent for a year earlier. This 25-percent year-to-year increase was the biggest since July 1997.

Americans filed for bankruptcy protection in record numbers in the first half of this year, many probably trying to file before the government could enact bankruptcy reforms that would make it harder for them to wipe out their bad debt.

The total number of new bankruptcy filings in the second quarter was 400,394, an increase of 24.5 percent over the same quarter in 2000 and up 9 percent from 366,841 bankruptcies filed in the first quarter of this year, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said last week.

The jump in bankruptcies and late payments would translate into more loan losses for card issuers, said William Black, a senior Moody's analyst.

``The combination of relatively high personal bankruptcy filings and accelerating deterioration in the delinquency rate suggests that the chargeoff rate will continue to rise for several months,'' Black said in a statement.

YIELD REMAINS STABLE

Credit card issuers have been able to protect their bottomlines from rising losses and falling interest rates.

Their yield, or the annualized percentage of income collected during the month, in July was 19.39 percent, up marginally from 19.34 percent a year earlier.

``The recent cuts in short term interest rates have not had much impact on credit card average revenues, but it may be a bit early to tell,'' said Moody's analyst Christophe Germain.

Moody's credit card indexes for July tracked the credit performance in roughly $335 billion of U.S. bank credit card loans backing securities rated by Moody's.

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