Delinquencies at Commercial Banks

The accompanying table shows, not unexpectedly, that between the first and fourth quarter of 2001, 30- to 89-day delinquencies at FDIC-insured commercial banks increased for each type of consumer credit and for each size category of bank. In the fourth quarter, the percentages of total delinquencies were higher for credit card loans than for personal loans: 2.69 percent vs. 2.47 percent (not shown in table). Banks having assets less than $100 million reported the highest rate of delinquencies on loans to individuals (2.88 percent), and banks with assets ranging from $1 billion to $10 billion the lowest rate (2.40 percent). These relationships repeated the pattern of the first quarter. Banks with assets ranging from $100 million to under $1 billion reported delinquencies of 5.08 percent on credit card loans, well above the rates of 2.52 percent for the smallest banks and 2.59 percent for the largest banks.

Among all the banks, 2.72 percent of loans to individuals were charged off in the fourth quarter. The highest rate of charge-offs was among banks with assets ranging from $1 billion to $10 billion (3.39 percent), while the lowest rate was 0.92 percent among banks with assets of less than $10 million. Among all banks, 5.72 percent of credit card loans were charged off, with lowest rate among the smallest banks (2.93 percent) and the highest rate of charge-offs among banks with $100 million to $1 billion (6.82 percent).

Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation