Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come. An analysis of financial data from the country’s largest card issuers also found that the greatest rise was among accounts more than 90 days in arrears.

Experts say these signs of the deterioration of finances of many households are partly a by-product of the subprime mortgage crisis and could spell more trouble ahead for an already sputtering US economy. “Debt eventually leaks into other areas, whether it starts with the mortgage and goes to the credit card or vice versa,” said Cliff Tan, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and an expert on credit risk. “We’re starting to see leaks now.”

The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 per cent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the study. That represented more than 4 per cent of the total outstanding principal balances owed to the trusts on credit cards that were issued by banks such as Bank of America and Capital One and for retailers like Home Depot and Wal-Mart.

At the same time, defaults — when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt — rose 18 per cent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Serious delinquencies also are up sharply: Some of the America’s biggest lenders, including Advanta, GE Money Bank and HSBC, reported increases of 50 per cent or more in the value of accounts that were at least 90 days delinquent when compared with the same period a year ago.

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