Credit card losses fall in July

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. credit card charge-offs and delinquencies fell in July at big credit card lenders as fewer Americans fell behind on their credit card payments.

Credit card delinquency rates declined to their lowest levels this year, indicating that U.S. consumers have recovered from the worst of the severe recession.

Lenders that reported lower charge-offs and delinquencies included Capital One Financial Corp <COF.N>, Discover Financial Services <DFS.N>, JPMorgan Chase & Co <JPM.N> and Bank of America Corp <BAC.N>.

Delinquencies, an early warning sign of future losses, have fallen at most lenders since the beginning of the year. But their July decline is a particularly welcome sign for analysts because it indicates that U.S. customers can manage their debts despite an uncertain economic recovery and high unemployment.

Charge-offs, or bad loans written off as uncollectable, also fell at major U.S. credit card lenders. JPMorgan Chase's and Capital One's loss rates fall to about 8 percent, a big improvement from the over-10 percent rates they posted as recently as January. Discover and Bank of America reported July charge-off rates that fell to their lowest levels this year.

Those loss rates are elevated compared to pre-recession levels, especially at Bank of America, which continued to report some of the highest charge-off and delinquency rates of the major U.S. credit card lenders.

But the company's credit card delinquencies fell to their lowest levels this year, down to 5.92 percent from 6.16 percent in June. Bank of America's charge-offs also fell to a new low of 11.39 percent from 11.98 percent in June.

JPMorgan Chase said in a regulatory filing on Monday that its delinquency rate fell to 4.06 in July from 4.13 percent in June. Charge-offs fell to 7.95 percent from 8.38 percent.

Discover's credit card delinquencies fell to 4.72 percent in July from 4.81 percent. Charge-offs at the credit card lender and processing network also fell to a new low this year of 7.28 percent from 8 percent in June.

Capital One's U.S. credit card charge-offs continued their decline for the fourth straight month, falling to 8.13 percent in July from 9.28 percent in June. Its accounts at least 30 days delinquent declined to 4.66 percent from 4.79 percent.

Citigroup Inc <C.N> and American Express Co <AXP.N> are also expected to report the monthly performance of their credit card portfolios on Monday.

Shares of most credit card lenders, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One and Discover, were trading slightly up on Monday morning.

(Reporting by Maria Aspan in New York; additional reporting by Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore. Editing by Robert MacMillan)