Capital One Charge-Offs Fall in February

Capital One said its credit card charge-off rate fell in February for the first time in at least five months.
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McLEAN, VA. (

TheStreet

) --

Capital One's

(COF) - Get Report

credit card charge-off rate fell in February for the first time in at least five months.

The credit card company said in a filing with the

Securities and Exchange Commission

on Monday that loans written off last month fell by 22 basis points to 10.19%, or $494 million, compared to January metrics. Capital One's domestic card loans held for investment at the end of February totaled $57.42 billion, down roughly 3% from the prior month as Capital One seeks to shed bad loans.

Loans that were 30 days or more delinquent fell by 29 basis points in February to 5.51%, or $3.16 billion, Capital One said.

Auto loans also had improved metrics last month. Capital One's auto loan net charge-off rate dropped to 2.50% from 4.27% in January. Loans more than 30 days late also fell significantly to 7.99% from 9.61%, the filing said.

Capital One's charge-offs on international cards also fell by nearly 100 basis points to 8.07% in February, however delinquency rates on international cards at least 30 days past due rose 2 basis points to 6.68% last month.

Monthly credit card delinquency data from

American Express

(AXP) - Get Report

as well as delinquency data on securitized loans from the large credit card issuing banks

JPMorgan Chase

(JPM) - Get Report

and

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

and

Citigroup

(C) - Get Report

will likely be filed later today.

Credit card rival

Discover Financial (DFS) - Get Report

said after the markets closed on Thursday that it would post a loss for the firm's fiscal first quarter on higher reserve marks.

However, the increase in loan loss reserves is not due to any systemic worsening of credit quality but rather a change in Discover's methodology in which it now covers the equivalent of 12 months of losses as opposed to nine months previously.

Capital One's shares were rising 0.9% to $40.23 in early action. Discover and American Express shares were also up shortly after the opening bell.

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Written by Laurie Kulikowski in New York.