U.S. credit card debts written off as uncollectable rose in November, following two consecutive months of decline, though early stage delinquencies dropped for the month, Moody's Investors Service said Tuesday.
Credit card charge-offs rose by about one-half percentage point in November to 10.56 percent, and is likely to continue to rise to a peak of between 12 percent and 13 percent in mid-2010, Moody's said in a statement.
Delinquencies, which measure the proportion of accounts for which a monthly payment is more than 30 days late, also increased to 6.2 percent in November, though early stage delinquencies fell to 1.6 percent for the month, Moody's said.
"While this improvement is somewhat encouraging, the measure tends to experience some monthly volatility and we would not interpret the single month of improvement as evidence of any turn in consumer credit trends," Moody's analyst Jeffrey Hibbs said in the statement.
The payment rate, which measures the average amount of principal that cardholders repay each month, declined by 0.89 percentage point to 16.42 percent, largely due to November being a shorter month, although it is likely to rebound in December, Moody's said.
Yields earned on credit cards also fell by 0.15 percentage point in the month to 21.09 percent, but remains close to their all-time highs, Moody's said. The excess spread, which measures the profitability of credit card programs, fell to 7.7 percent in the month.
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