Moody’s Investors Service reports that Canadian credit card debt continued to deteriorate in the second quarter, with charge-off rates reaching a new record level of 4.8%.

The rise in the charge-off rate is comparable to the U.S. market, although the absolute rate remains much lower in Canada. The Canadian charge-off rate index is up nearly 60% from the year-ago mark of 3.07%, by comparison, charge-offs in the U.S. climbed 65%. However, the U.S. rate is much higher at 10.45%, up from 6.38% a year earlier.

The rating agency predicts that charge-offs will continue to worsen in the coming months, though at a relatively slower pace than earlier in the year. A surge in the number of personal bankruptcy filings underscores the persistent weakness in the economy and the unemployment rate continues to rise, Moody’s says, adding that trends in the unemployment rate and credit card charge-offs are highly correlated.

The unemployment rate was 8.7% in August, and Moody’s current forecast calls for it to peak at approximately 9.6% in the second quarter of 2010, approximately when charge-offs should also peak.

The delinquency rate, which measures the proportion of account balances for which monthly payment is more than 30 days past due, was 2.82% in the second quarter, up from 2.29% a year earlier, but a slight improvement from the first quarter rate of 2.90%, Moody’s said. It notes that the U.S. and UK delinquency rate indexes are more than twice as high as that in Canada.

IE