Call Report Data

Every insured commercial bank files a Call Report each quarter with its federal supervisory agency. The Call Report provides a comprehensive balance sheet and income statement for each bank; however, it does not allocate all expenses or attribute all revenues to specific product lines, such as credit cards. Nevertheless, the data may be used to assess the profitability of credit card activities by analyzing the earnings of those banks established primarily to issue and service credit card accounts. These specialized or mono-lined banks are referred to here as "credit card banks."

For purposes of this report, credit card banks are defined by two criteria: (1) the bulk of their assets are loans to individuals (consumer lending), and (2) 90 percent or more of their consumer lending involves credit cards or related plans. Given this definition, it can reasonably be assumed that the profitability of these banks primarily reflects returns from their credit card operations.

The first credit card banks were chartered in the early 1980s; few were in operation prior to the mid-1980s. To provide a more reliable picture of the year-to-year changes in the profitability of the credit card operations of card issuers, this report limits its focus to credit card banks having at least $200 million in assets. Most of these institutions have been in continuous operation for several years, particularly those with assets exceeding $1 billion, and are well beyond the initial phase of their operations.

As of December 31, 2012, 15 banks with assets exceeding $200 million met the definition of a credit card bank. At that time, these banks accounted for approximately 60 percent of outstanding credit card balances on the books of commercial banks or in pools underlying securities backed by credit card balances.

Due to accounting rule changes regarding the treatment of securitized assets implemented at the beginning of 2010, profitability measures based on the Call Report since then are not perfectly comparable to years before 2010. Prior to 2010, this Report included off-balance-sheet securitized credit card receivables as part of total assets under the assumption that the Call Report income and expense items reflected some income and expenses related to these securitized assets. Analysis of quarterly Call Report data on income and expenses just before and after implementation of the accounting changes suggests that, in fact, the Call Reports prior to 2010 missed a substantial portion of the net income from securitized assets. Thus, profitability measures in Reports prior to 2010, while consistent over time, are understated relative to measures in 2010 and after.

To help provide a more consistent historic series, the profitability estimates since 2001 have been estimated excluding credit card securities from total assets. Although the estimated profit figures shown in this Report may overstate to some degree profitability from 2000-2009, they are likely to be more consistent with profitability measures beginning in 2010 than profitability estimates provided in previous Reports.

In 2012, credit card banks with assets in excess of $200 million reported net earnings before taxes and extraordinary items of 4.80 percent of assets excluding securities (Table 1, column 2).³ This level of returns is similar to (about 14 basis points higher) to the level of profitability measured after including securitized assets (shown in column 1 of Table 1) reflecting the change in accounting standards. The level of earnings in 2012 is lower than in 2011 when credit card banks as a group experienced net earnings of 5.37 percent. The 2012 rate of return is higher than the average rate of return over the 2001-2012 timeframe which is estimated to be 4.24 percent, although not as high as levels reached in several of the years prior to the recent recession.

Earnings for credit card issuers in 2012 reflect, in part, continuing improvement in credit quality which had deteriorated as a consequence of the recent recession. Delinquency rates on credit cards increased from nearly 4 percent at the beginning of 2007, to a peak of 6.8 percent in mid-2009, before falling back to about 4.2 percent at the end of 2010 and down to 2.7 percent at the end of 2012.⁴ Charge-offs on credit cards increased sharply in 2009 and into the first portion of 2010 in response to mounting delinquencies and defaults, but receded sharply in the second half of 2010 and has continued to fall since then. As defaults mounted during the recent recession, credit card issuers set aside a large amount of reserves to cover anticipated losses. By the end of 2012, the charge-off rate on credit cards at 4.08 percent was less than 40 percent of the rate experienced at its peak in mid-2010.⁵ Although credit card issuers experienced improved credit quality in 2012, they nonetheless increased provisioning for future losses restraining earnings in 2012.

Although profitability for the large credit card banks has risen and fallen over the years, credit card earnings have been almost always higher than returns on all commercial bank activities.⁶ Earnings patterns for 2012 were consistent with historical experience: For all commercial banks, the average return on all assets, before taxes and extraordinary items was 1.34 percent in 2012 compared to 4.80 percent for the large credit card banks.⁷

One difficulty that arises in assessing changes in the profitability of credit card activities over time is that the sample of credit card banks changes somewhat from one year to the next primarily because of mergers and acquisitions. Thus, overall changes in profit rates from year to year reflect both real changes in activity and changes in the sample. To evaluate the effects of sample changes, the profitability of the specific banks included in the sample each year was also examined for the prior year. Excluding the two credit card banks that were added to the ongoing sample for the analysis of 2012 activity, results indicate that profitability would have been lower by about 45 basis points.