Hawaii consumers’ average credit card debt fell 12.9 percent in the second quarter over the previous year, while delinquent payments sharply declined, according to a report released this week by TransUnion, one of the three top credit reporting agencies.
The average debt in Hawaii totaled $4,871, down from $5,594 in the year-earlier quarter and slightly above the national average of $4,699.
“For the first time in two years, balances in Hawaii are much more aligned with balances in the nation as a whole. That’s remarkably good news,” said Ezra Becker, vice president of research and consulting in TransUnion’s financial services business unit.
Alaska residents carried the highest average debt at $6,926, followed by North Carolina at $5,433 and Colorado at $5,246. Hawaii was ranked 13th.
In another measure, Hawaii’s 90-day delinquencies dropped to 0.52 percent from 0.75 percent a year earlier, the data showed.
The delinquency rate — the ratio of bank-card borrowers 90 days or more delinquent on one or more of their bank-issued credit cards — was the highest in Nevada at 0.93 percent, followed by Georgia and Florida at 0.78 percent and 0.77 percent, respectively. The national delinquency rate is 0.60 percent. Hawaii ranked 38th.
Hawaii began seeing decreasing balances six months later than the rest of the nation, “driven by the fact that because it’s an island state, consumers in Hawaii rely more on credit cards,” Becker said.
TransUnion’s data consist of 27 million anonymous consumer records randomly sampled every quarter from its national consumer credit database.
