What will the credit card companies do?

Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Sat, Oct 24 2009 | 0 Comments

All the credit card companies are reporting a huge rise in delinquencies. The problem I see is that not only are there more and more defaults of credit cards, but these are the same banks that faced huge losses in the subprime mess.

Most the companies like Citigroup and Chase are going to be raising their rates before new credit card rules go into effect. There is only one company that comes to mind that says that it won’t raise its rates before the new rules go into effect and it is Bank of America.

The problem I am seeing is that with more fees and higher interest rate charges, people are not going to be able to afford their bills even more. So, it seems to me that those people who are facing problems now will almost definitely be defaulting on their high interest credit cards.

Of course, some of the credit card companies are currently telling their customers that if they want to avoid the new rate hikes then they can pay off their credit cards in a small time frame. I have read that most people are having to pay off their debt in 45 days if they want to keep their rates the same.

I just don’t see how people who have thousands of dollars of debt are able to pay off their debts in a matter of less than two months.

So, this brings us back to the issue of defaults that credit card companies will likely be facing in the near future.

Without the ability to increase rates (and mess over the customers that pay their bills on time every month) at the drop of a hat, what will the credit card companies do? How will they make up the amount of money that they will be losing on defaults?

Related posts:
Wells Fargo wants to stand out and raise credit card rates
The number of credit card defaults increased by over 11% in August
Bank of America says it won’t raise fees ahead of new regulations

Tags: interest rate charges, delinquencies, credit card companies