Credit Card Delinquencies Are Down

Overdue U.S. credit card payments are falling, and the number of new credit accounts rose during the first quarter of 2014, credit reporting company TransUnion said Tuesday (Aug. 26).

The rate of card payments at least 90 days overdue fell to 1.16 percent for the April-to-June period, the lowest level in at least seven years. That delinquency rate was 1.27 percent for the same period last year and 1.37 percent for the first three months of 2014. Delinquencies peaked in 2009 at 3.12 percent, Daily Finance reported.

Average card debt was up about 0.2 percent to $5,234, and total U.S. credit card debt reached $873.1 billion in June, according to the Federal Reserve.

Meanwhile, the number of new consumer credit card accounts increased by 17.8 percent to about 11.7 million from January to March, versus the quarter a year earlier. The share of cards issued to borrowers with less-than-perfect credit increased to 31.2 percent — up from 27.3 percent a year earlier, but well below the 45 percent share from before the recession.

Card-issuing banks are also offering higher credit limits on their cards. Those limits have risen 29.4 percent over the past three years, and now average $5,230, TransUnion said.