Past-due loans at Bank of America, the second-largest card lender, fell for a fifth month in April and by the most in four years, while AmEx's delinquencies were down 34 percent from a year earlier. Target Corp., the second-largest U.S. discount retailer, last week reported its lowest delinquency rate in the latest quarter since the second quarter of 2008.
With fewer tardy borrowers to worry about, banks are more likely to extend fresh credit to American consumers, whose spending makes up 70 percent of the economy. That may weaken Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's commitment to an "extended period" of low interest rates, said economist Stephen Stanley.
"Then we get back to the scenario where the U.S. banking system is gradually healing, credit quality is gradually improving and creditworthiness of borrowers is improving," said Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Conn. "Some evidence of stability in the banking sector is an additional precondition to normalizing monetary policy."
U.S. central bankers on April 28 kept the benchmark federal funds rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent, where it has been since December 2008.
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