April 21, 2010
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News: Wells Fargo Latest To Report On 1st Q
Americans continue to suffer from the results of the recession. Millions still out of work; hundreds of thousands are losing their homes; and even higher numbers are struggling to meet credit card and loan responsibilities. Several large banks have released the results of first quarter credit card delinquencies and defaults with optimism. Over all, delinquencies have declines while defaults increased slightly. Optimism is expressed because delinquencies are an indicator of what will occur three and four months down the road. While we recently reported on most major credit card companies including American Express, Bank of American, JPMorgan, and Citi; Wells Fargo & Co has been the latest company to release first quarter results.
According to their filing, Wells Fargo's credit card delinquencies of 90 days or more for first quarter 2010 decreased from $719 million from the previous quarter of $795 million. Card defaults increased during first quarter to 11.17 percent up from 10.61 percent for 4th quarter 2009. Overall, early state delinquencies for consumer loans, mortgages, auto loans and credit cards improved; another sign of an economic trend upward. Wells Fargo customers reduced their card balances as well moving outstanding card debt for the quarter down to $22.5 billion; a 1.3 percent decrease from the same time last year. The decrease is accredited to tightening credit availability, reducing balance transfer promotions, and reducing credit line increases.
The bank also reported that debit and credit card fees earned Wells Fargo $865 million; a 1.4 percent increase from the previous quarter. Card processing fees increased also for the quarter to $497 million, a 13.9 percent increase from the previous quarter. Branch networks outperformed the company's Wells Fargo Financial unit in generating card loans coming in with $17.6 billion versus the financial unit's $4.9 billion. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Wells Fargo & Co. is a global diversified financial services company that services over 48 million customers with 6,650 retail branches across the world. The company is the fourth largest U.S. band by assets and the second largest in deposits, home mortgage loan services, and issuer of debit cards. On December 31, 2008, Wells Fargo acquired another major banking institution, Wachovia Bank, to avoid its collapse.