Forgiveness sought for credit-card debt

With defaults on credit-card debt spiraling amid a global financial downturn, banks already reeling from the mortgage crisis are losing billions more from unpaid credit-card bills. Big banks have formed an unusual alliance with consumer advocates to urge the government to allow huge portions of credit-card debt to be forgiven, a turnabout from recent years when the banking industry lobbied strenuously to make it harder for consumers to erase their credit-card debts in bankruptcy reports the Daily News.

The new pilot program – which the banks hope will become permanent – could involve as many as 50,000 people struggling with credit-card debt. On an individual basis, the amount of debt to be forgiven would rise according to the severity of the borrower’s financial situation, up to a maximum of 40 percent.

“There’s obviously a financial benefit to the financial institutions to step up to the plate right now,” said Susan Keating, president and chief executive of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, which has 108 member organizations around the country. “We absolutely support the proposal.”

In an increasingly tough economic climate, banks and other mortgage lenders already have been agreeing to modify loans of distressed homeowners to help them avoid foreclosure.

Now, banks making credit- card loans have reached a point where they can lose less by forgiving part of the debt than seeing the consumer walk away entirely.

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