Loan delinquencies are low, lenders say, but payments are later

We got a look at the state of lending in the U.S. today by way of the Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey. It found that lenders are tightening standards across loan categories and fewer borrowers applied for loans in the first place.

We’ve been hearing about these trends for a while. But even though the lending environment is getting tighter, we aren’t seeing many signs that loan delinquencies — generally considered to be when a payment is more than 30 days past due — are picking up a lot.

Chris Duncan, chief lending officer at La Salle State Bank in Illinois, said he doesn’t have many borrowers in that situation.

“For us, anywhere from 0.1% of our overall loan portfolio to 0.3% — that range,” he said.

But Duncan said he looks at those numbers with a bit of pessimism. “Once they get that low, there’s only one way that they can go, and that’s up.”

There are signs that could happen, he said. For instance, overdraft rates are ticking up at the bank. And even though loans might not be 30 days overdue, it doesn’t mean borrowers are paying on time.

“We’re starting to see loans that either were never past due or maybe at the most got five and 10 days past due, that they’re starting to creep on into that 20, 25-day range, or making payments on the 29th day to avoid that 30-day delinquency,” Duncan said.

Same thing’s been happening at Optus Bank in South Carolina. CEO Dominik Mjartan said he’s seeing late payments pick up across the board.

“I was a little surprised in the last weekly loan meeting that I saw some names of business borrowers that I hadn’t seen in months or even years on that list,” he said.

Mjartan said his bank has been checking in with borrowers who are late to see how things are going.

Overall, he said, they say they’re adjusting to a tighter economic environment.

“Costs are a little bit higher because of inflation, their business may have slowed down a tiny bit,” he said. “Or their existing consumer debt may be higher-cost, so they’re having to service more of that with the same amount of cash flow.”

But, Mjartan said borrowers still have wiggle room to figure out how to keep making their payments.

In large part, that’s because people have money coming in. “You know, we still continue to see a pretty nice pickup in wages,” he said. “We see employment still staying relatively strong by historic standards.”

Mjartan said that’s why late payments aren’t necessarily red flags, as long as delinquencies don’t pick up too.