Discover cardholders suffer fewer defaults as profits skyrocket

One of the nation's largest credit card lenders recently revealed that it saw its second-quarter profits more than triple as consumers used their accounts more often and made more successful efforts to reduce debt.

Purchase volume and value rose appreciably, and charged off accounts fell considerably, and those factors combined to spell $593 million in second-quarter profits for Discover Financial Services. That was up from the $185 million profit the institution enjoyed in the same period last year.

The value of the purchases the company processed climbed 18 percent to $71.62 billion in the three-month period ending May 31, the report said. Meanwhile, the number of those transactions surged 25 percent.

In addition, charge offs slipped to just 5.01 percent of all balances, and cost the company $577 million, the report said. That was down from the 8.56 percent and $1 billion observed in the second fiscal quarter last year as consumers worked to get out of debt.

Discover is like all of the other top lenders in the U.S., in that falling credit card defaults have saved it hundreds of millions of dollars in recent quarters, leading to far larger profits.