S&P/Experian Credit Default Indices Show Drop in First Mortgage, Credit Card Defaults

NEW YORK — Data through February 2011, released today by Standard & Poor’s and Experian for the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices, a comprehensive measure of changes in consumer credit defaults, showed a decline in monthly default rates across all credit lines. Second Mortgages and bank card indices declined to 1.46% and 5.67% respectively. Auto Loan experienced a small decrease to 1.58%. First mortgage defaults fell to 2.45% with a monthly decline of over 14%.

“Default rates continue to fall across all major categories and year over year across the five high-lighted cities.  The overall trend has lasted a number of months now, reflecting improved consumer health and the appearance of continued economic recovery,” says Craig Feldman, Director at S&P Indices.

Consumer credit defaults varied across major cities and regions of the U.S. Among the five major Metropolitan Statistical Areas reported each month in this release, Los Angeles experienced a steady decrease in defaults this month to 2.70%. New York and Miami followed the trend with default rates of 2.53% and 6.05%. Dallas had the largest decrease in default rates to 1.78%. Chicago had an increase in defaults to 2.83%.

The table gives summary results for February 2011 for the S&P/Experian Credit Default Indices. These data are not seasonally adjusted and are not subject to revision.

Source: S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices
Data Through: February 2011

Jointly developed by Standard & Poor’s and Experian, the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices are published on the third Tuesday of each month at 9:00 am ET. They are constructed to accurately track the default experience of consumer balances in four key loan categories: auto, bankcard, first mortgage lien and second mortgage lien. The Indices are calculated based on data extracted from Experian’s consumer credit database. This database is populated with individual consumer loan and payment data submitted by lenders to Experian every month. Experian’s base of data contributors includes leading banks and mortgage companies, and covers approximately $11 trillion in outstanding loans sourced from 11,500 lenders.

For more information, please visit: www.consumercreditindices.standardandpoors.com.

About S&P Indices
S&P Indices, a part of McGraw-Hill Financial, is the world’s leading index provider maintaining a wide variety of investable and benchmark indices. Over $1.25 trillion is directly indexed to Standard & Poor’s family of indices, which includes the S&P 500, the world’s most followed stock market index, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, the S&P Global BMI, an index with approximately 11,000 constituents, the S&P GSCI, the industry’s most closely watched commodities index, and the S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Index, the premier investable index for U.S. municipal bonds. For more information, please visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

Standard & Poor’s does not sponsor, endorse, sell or promote any S&P index-based investment product. The S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices are products of S&P Indices, which operates independently of Standard & Poor’s Ratings Group. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Group plays no role in the compilation, distribution or licensing of the Indices.

About Experian Capital Markets
Formed as a response to market needs, Experian Capital Markets leverages Experian’s comprehensive U.S. consumer and business databases to provide data and analytics to serve the transparency needs of the structured finance market participants. By taking underlying borrower data and applying advanced analytics, Experian provides insight into U.S. consumer and business credit behavior across all obligations, helping to forecast future payment patterns on prepayments, delinquencies, charge-offs or defaults for non-agency residential mortgage–backed securities and other asset-backed securities.

About Experian
Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 90 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended March 31, 2010, was $3.9 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; Costa Mesa, California; and São Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.