The number of people who are late paying their credit card bills is going down and down in spite of continued high unemployment in the country.
Though the rate of delinquency in September showed a slight uptick, the numbers are still low by historical standards. I read in The Wall Street Journal that the late-payment rate at Discover is the lowest it’s been in 25 years. Meanwhile, the delinquency rate at American Express is down to 1.5%. That’s extremely low for unsecured debt.
It’s one of reasons why there have been tons of preapproval credit offers for those with good credit — generally with a credit score of 700 and above. I spoke about the screaming deals that are being offered several days ago on my show. If you pay your bills net each month, I say go ahead and take advantage of one of the offers you’re probably seeing in your mailbox.
What’s going on right now is that the spigot of lending is reopening. Responsible borrowing will definitely be a part of the process of our economy recovering.
