BANKING & FINANCE - July 19, 1991

Credit Card Defaults Up: Moody’s Investors Service Inc. said that credit card delinquencies and defaults continued to rise in May in a sign of the economy’s lingering weakness but that the rate of increase slowed. The rating agency said 5.83% of the bank card accounts that it tracks were delinquent at the end of May, up 18% from a year ago. However, the increase was not as sharp as in the previous six months, when delinquencies rose 28% on average from a year earlier. Moody’s defines delinquencies as payments more than 30 days past due.