Charge-offs Declined for Many in December

Whether it is beginning of a trend or simply just the case of having good fortune, the month of December was one that gave credit card issuers a reason to smile. This is because for many of them charge-offs showed a decline from previous months. While this was not the case for all of the major issuers, hopefully this will continue into 2010.

Those that saw a decrease in December numbers from November include JP Morgan (Chase), American Express, Citi Bank, and Discover. As for the numbers Chase reported charge offs at 7.11 percent from around 8.81 percent and American Express saw a slight drop to 7.10 percent from 7.60 percent. Citi stated theirs drop to 9.56 percent from 10.29 percent and Discover said their numbers dropped to 8.68 percent from 8.98 percent. Those that were not as fortunate to shake the trend of rising charge offs included Capital One and Bank of America. Capital One saw highest increase of 10.14 percent from 9.60 percent and Bank of America rose to 13.53 percent from 13 percent.

While this is good news for many of the banks, we can also think that this is good news for borrowers as well. As these numbers begin to stabilize we may hopefully get to see some calmness from issuers that have drastically changed the world of using credit cards that we once knew. Even as many have vowed to never use credit cards again, for those that are currently looking for credit this could very well effect the likelyhood of getting it extended to you.