It seems continuingly obvious that American consumers are paying off their credit card debt more diligently and effectively.  Recent data from top United Sates card issuers shows the month of October to be no different.  Five of the largest credit card companies released figures, which showed fewer consumers being late in their payments and fewer balances being classified as uncollectible.  Of the five credit card companies, four of them reported record low levels of late payments and bad debt.

Only Bank of America reported a slight increase for the month (from 9.98 percent in September to 10.15 percent).  Even so, the percentage of write offs for the Charlotte, North Carolina, bank is still significantly lower than its peak rate of 13.53 percent in December.  The bank also reported a slight fall in late payments from 5.71 percent to 5.6 percent.

According to The Nilson Report, Bank of America is the second largest credit card issuer as far as outstanding balances.  Capital One Financial Corp. reported the biggest fall in charge-off rates.  Capital One had a write of rate of 8.38 percent the prior month while reporting a 7.26 percent in October.  Both Discover Financial Services Inc. and Chase showed slight improvements while rates for American Express Co. remained level during the period.

The drop in charge off rates has been a steady trend throughout the year. Managing director at Fitch Ratings, Mike Dean believes the bad debt situation for credit card issuers is calming. A majority of the bad debt has already been written off leaving them with a better portfolio of accounts still left open.  Dean said, "A log of poor performing consumers have been written off."

According to statistics from the Federal Reserve, charge off rates peaked at 10.66 percent in the second quarter.  Though the situation seems to be improving, Dean believes we are still quite a bit away from the norm rate of six percent.  "We still have a ways to go, "Dean said.