LOS ANGELES (AP)—Americans are doing a better job of making timely credit card payments, even as many lenders increasingly extend credit to more people with less-than-stellar credit.
The rate of U.S. credit card payments at least 90 days overdue fell to 1.16 percent in the April-June quarter—the lowest level in at least seven years, credit reporting agency TransUnion said Tuesday.
The second-quarter credit card delinquency rate is down from 1.27 percent in the same period last year and 1.37 percent in the first three months of this year.
The late-payment rate peaked in the first quarter of 2009 at 3.12 percent, TransUnion said. The firm’s data set goes back to 2007 and is drawn from information culled from virtually every U.S. consumer who uses credit.
Average card debt per borrower was up slightly in the second quarter, rising about 0.2 percent to $5,234. It rose 1.4 percent from the first quarter of this year.
Americans still have a limited appetite for debt after gorging themselves on sub-prime mortgages and credit cards before recession seized the country in late 2007.
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