Quarterly performance on home-equity products was better at the nation’s banks. In fact, past-due payments improved in 11 categories of consumer loans to the lowest level in four years.
The rate of 30-day delinquency on home-equity loans owned by banks was 4.08 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
That was 4 basis point below the third-quarter rate. But the past-due payments deteriorated from the fourth-quarter 2010, when HEL delinquency was 4.05 percent.
The American Bankers Association reported the bank consumer delinquency data Thursday.
The performance of home-equity lines of credit was also better, with the delinquency rate falling to 1.69 percent from the third quarter’s 1.93 percent. The HELOC rate was also higher a year earlier at 1.73 percent.
On mobile homes, the one-month delinquency rate was 3.76 percent. The rate improved from 4.08 percent three months prior and 4.01 percent one year prior.
At 0.93 percent, delinquency of at least 30 days on property improvement loans was 3 BPS better than the prior period. Late payments on property improvement loans were 1.26 percent in the fourth-quarter 2010.
ABA noted that delinquency in all 11 consumer categories that it tracks was lower, with its composite index down 10 BPS from the third quarter to 2.49 percent — the lowest it’s been since 2008.
“You can’t get a better consumer credit report card than this,” ABA Chief Economist James Chessen said in the report. “It’s very rare that delinquencies improve in every single loan category.
“The last time that happened was in the fourth quarter of 2004.”
But Chessen acknowledged that the composite rate is still too high.
