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Still, not everyone agrees that the situation is on the brink of despair. "The credit-card industry is being likened to what has happened in the mortgage industry," says Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, a personal-finance website. "I don't see how the two should be mentioned in the same sentence." He reasons that even if credit-card defaults reach a record high of 10% of the $970 billion in revolving debt, a chunk of that total will get paid off in full every month, which would result in an aggregate default of less than $100 billion...
...charge-off rate on credit-card defaults could skyrocket to 10% in 2009 - double the average of 5% over the past 10 years - reaching $18.6 billion in the first quarter and $96 billion by the end of next year, predicts an October report from Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, an investment-research firm. "A 10% [charge-off] rate would be unprecedented," says Laura Nishikawa, an Innovest analyst. (Read "Fannie and Freddie Offer New Plan to Help Homeowners...
Traditionally, the credit-card industry is resilient during economic downturns because of its pricing flexibility. As the economy slows and people start to become late on their payments, card companies can boost earnings through late fees and higher interest rates. Today, however, consumers are tapped out and defaults are ratcheting up. "With charge-offs rising so fast and beyond what was expected, the losses those cause will far surpass what companies were hoping to make up with by extra card fees and higher interest rates," says Nishikawa. Nonetheless, the industry keeps trying: on Thursday, embattled Citigroup announced that, in addition...
...with the auto industry in Detroit, some of the credit-card industry's current problems have been years in the making. Over the past decade, U.S. households have been loading up on debt, with credit-card balances rising 75% since 1999. Yet families' real wages have increased only slightly - by just 4% during that same time period, according to Innovest. The savings rate has similarly declined relative to credit-card balances. Meanwhile, home equity, the biggest source of wealth for most families, has been drained by the mortgage crisis. "There isn't a cushion for anyone who has a bump...
Increased use of securitization in the credit-card industry has fueled some if its growth. Over the past four years, seven of the biggest card issuers packaged more debt into securities, which they sold to investors, according to USA Today's assessment of banking records. But with credit-card defaults rising and a general "flight to quality" this year brought on by the subprime mortgage crisis, fewer outlets are willing to buy the debt. "The securitization market for credit cards was operating for the first half of 2008 but is now shut down, making it harder to securitize credit-card...