Credit Card Delinquencies on the Rise

The economy is in shambles and unemployment is rising above 8%. It should come as no surprise that delinquencies are rising at the major credit card issuers.

Card companies are required to file monthly reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding performance data of credit card loans that have been securitized. Analysts say the performance data gives a useful indication of how a company's entire credit card portfolio is doing.

Companies including American Express (AXP Quote) , Discover Financial (DFS Quote) and Capital One (COF Quote), as well as banks with large credit card arms such as Bank of America (BAC Quote) , Citigroup (C Quote) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote), reported monthly metrics earlier this week.

Discover said Thursday it made $120 million, or 25 cents a share, in the first quarter, compared to $81.2 million, or 17 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Discover also cut its dividend by two-thirds to 2 cents a share. The action will save the company $80 million in capital a year, it said.

Last month credit card losses "increased by an average of 14% sequentially and 56% year-over-year" for the three largest banks -- BofA, Citi and JPMorgan Chase, according to Jeff Harte, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners. Harte cautions that the securitized portfolio data tends to be "volatile from month-to-month."

Citi had the highest amount of charged-off loans at 9.33% of the securitized portfolio vs. 6.95% in January. BofA's charge-offs totaled 9.1%, while JPMorgan Chase's charge offs came in at 6.43%.

On the other hand, BofA had the highest delinquencies last month, at 7.81%. Citi's reported delinquencies were 5.6% and JPMorgan Chase's were 4.64%.