Tag Archives: Credit card

Discover 1Q11 financials illustrate continued recovery for card issuers

Discover Financial typically reports quarterly financials one month before other leading U.S. credit card issuers. As such, its results are seen as provider leading indicators of the overall health of the credit card industry.

Discover reported 1Q11 financials on March 22. The following highlights from its results show that leading credit card issuers continue to recover following the crisis that impacted the industry in the second half of 2008. Note the following trends for some key credit quality metrics:

  • The net principal charge-off rate fell 304 bps y/y and 99 bps q/q to 5.96% (crucially, the charge-off rate is below 6% for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2008)
  • The 30+ day delinquency rate fell 180 bps y/y and 47 bps q/q to 3.59% (this is the lowest rate since the fourth quarter of 2007)

With credit quality now returning to more normalized levels, is Discover shifting its focus towards growth?  The 1Q11 results provide some contradictory evidence:

  • End-of-period credit card loans were down 3% year-over-year (y/y), with Discover attributing the decline to a higher payment rate on the part of cardholders.  However, the rate of credit card loan decline is slowing (y/y decline of 6% in 3Q10 and 5% in 4Q10).  And Discover’s CEO said that he expects credit card loans to growth in the second half of 2011
  • Discover card sales volume rose 7% y/y to $24.0 billion
  • Marketing and business development spending rose 60% year-over-year to $136 million in 1Q11 (due to seasonality in marketing spend patterns, quarterly trends are typically not very useful

So, there is evidence that Discover is investing for growth, but that it will continue to be conservative with regard to lending, and will aim to have a balance of spending and lending growth.

PNC revamps credit card portfolio to focus on relationship rewards

Earlier this week, PNC introduced three new rewards credit cards, with bonus rewards tiers for cardholders who also have specific PNC checking accounts. This relationship rewards approach builds on PNC’s existing PNC Points program, which enables customers to combine points earned on credit card and debit card spending, as well as on various banking activities. Two of the three new cards are also in the PNC Points program; the other offers a cash rebate.

While Citi’s ThankYou Network is frequently cited as the archetypal relationship rewards program, PNC’s bonus rewards concept has more in common with the Chase Exclusives program. Both programs provide bonus earnings for their checking account customers, and underscore the primacy of the checking account as the key relationship product for banks. It is also notable that all three banks have built their relationship rewards programs using a card-based points architecture.

With the Federal Reserve’s proposed cap on debit card interchange, many leading banks have announced the discontinuation of rewards on debit card spending. From a relationship perspective, this means that some banks are refocusing attention on the checking account itself, rather than the plastic attached to it. In the case of PNC, it is telling that the level of bonus reward is based on the checking product owned, each with different minimum balance requirements (e.g., 50% bonus with PNC Performance Checking Account; 75% bonus with PNC Performance Select Checking Account).

Volumes for Leading Card Issuers Are Recovering

In their most recent quarterly financials, the leading U.S. credit card issuers continued to show improvement in spending volumes. Credit card volumes were significantly hit in 2009, as consumers pulled back on discretionary spending, and as credit card issuers retrenched and reduced account numbers.

The following chart shows that most leading issuers returned to year-on-year growth in credit card volume in 2010, and that the rate of growth has steadily improved.

The reasons for the recent improvement in card volume are:

  • Overall economic recovery, with corresponding growth in consumer spending
  • Issuers’ promotion of card spending as a source of revenue, in particular as outstandings growth has been largely absent

A number of card issuers recently predicted that card outstandings should grow in the second half of 2011, but we expect that issuers will continue to push card volume, and aim for a good balance between spending and lending.