Can The Banks Signal The Economy's Direction??...

The major banks {Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, etc) that issue credit to people like you and I, are reporting numbers that will help us understand what people are doing (or not doing) with their debt lately. A good number of the banks reported that chargeoffs are on the rise again. Charge0ffs measure the number of accounts that no longer have the ability to pay off the debt that they've spent. This can happen for a number of reasons and be a sudden occurrence but usually charge0ffs are the end result of the cardholder being delinquent and not paying minimum amounts off for their credit balances. For example, I may chargeoff because I declared bankruptcy, made some type of settlement agreement with the bank, or after a long period of time (7mos) the bank determines that I will not be paying my debt off. So the fact that there are more of these situations occurring is not not a good thing. In general, the banks chargeoff levels mirror the rate of unemployment which is understandable. The one thing this trend tells me is that it appears to be more likely that once a cardholder starts to become delinquent they usually stay that way until the bank writes them off (after 7mos) and determines that they won't get their money back.



If people aren't making good on their existing debts then that means their available credit is shrinking and I go back to my example that indicates the consumer will be pulling back or not making new purchases because they don't have any more room on their cards. This means that most purchases need to come from cash and that is hard to come buy nowadays. Does this signal another leg down for the economy...its hard not to think that we've come too far too fast.



Now before you go and think that I have nothing positive to say, there was some good news. Most of the banks reported that the number of people going delinquent is declining slightly. So its seems like the key will be for the banks to do everything in their power to keep people making those minimum payments.

See the attached link for a view of the "Lifecycle of a Deliquent Card Account" (provided by creditcards.com):
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/life-cycle-delinquent-debt-1265.php

And the reaction of one credit card issuer is to charge very high interest rates, see the what a 79% interest rate looks like here:
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/first-premier-79-rate-fees-credit-card-1265.php