First Data Corp. will handle credit card processing for Kohl’s Corp.’s private-label credit cards in a multiyear agreement the two companies announced last week.

Wells Fargo & Co.’s credit card portfolio shrank somewhat in 2010 as charge-offs declined sharply, the San Francisco-based company said Jan. 19 when announcing fourth-quarter earnings.

Several of the biggest credit card issuers in December posted their lowest rates for chargeoffs than in any other month of 2010, meaning fewer accounts are slipping into default.

The universe of bonds backed by credit card loans shrank by about a fifth last year as an era of off-balance-sheet accounting ended and the industry re-engineered its funding base.

Target Corp. is seeking a buyer for its $6.7 billion credit card receivables portfolio, but it plans to retain operational control of its card program because of its “deep integration” with the company’s broader retail operations, the company announced last week.

Driven by a lower provision for credit losses, partially offset by lower net revenue, the Card Services unit at JPMorgan Chase & Co. generated fourth-quarter net income of $1.3 billion; it reported a $306 million loss during the same quarter ended Dec. 31 last year, Chase reported Friday.

U.S. consumer credit card portfolio sales were weak in 2010 as low demand drove the total number of deals down to merely a dozen, according to a report credit card consulting firm R.K. Hammer released this week.

Average U.S. consumer bankcard and private-label credit card charge-offs fell again in November, and that trend may continue into this year, according to new data Fitch Ratings Inc. released last week.

Credit card account originations are on the rise again as account-delinquency rates continue to fall and consumers continue to show discipline in their borrowing, a report Equifax Inc. released last week suggests.

A startup called Maxamum Inc. is trying to break down the credit system’s long-standing Catch 22–consumers generally cannot establish a credit history without having a credit card, but they typically cannot get a credit card without a credit history.

As credit card portfolio health continues to improve and consumer spending gradually picks up, card issuers are poised to see the first increase in overall credit card receivables next year, Moody’s Investors Service predicts in a report released last week.

U.S. consumers’ average credit card debt fell by 7.4% through the first 11 months of the year, while the average November credit score dropped a point from October’s score, according to data Credit Karma released this week.

Citibank reported Wednesday that its charge-off rate on credit cards fell to 9.4% of balances from 10.3% in October, the largest drop among the top six U.S. credit card issuers for November.

A woman saying she was harassed by Capital One for a disputed $4,000 credit card debt has filed suit after the bank demanded more than $286 million dollars.

A suspect was arrested for allegedly taking part in last week's online attacks against MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc. and PayPal Inc.

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson claims in a lawsuit that Discover Bank telemarketers selling identity-theft and credit-score monitoring services fail to tell consumers when they are agreeing to purchase those products, according to several media reports.

Consumer spending online during the five-day period that started with Black Friday (Nov. 26) grew by double digits compared with the same period in 2009, merchant processor Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC announced.

Credit card delinquency rates continued to fall in the third quarter as consumers continued to pay down debt and higher-risk borrowers stopped using credit cards at all, according to a report from TransUnion.

In 2009, banks and credit unions reported 41,548 suspicious activities related to card fraud, representing a 4.6% jump from 39,711 reports the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which maintains data on suspicious activity reports.

U.S. consumer credit card charge-off and delinquency rates fell once again in October as recession-related credit card losses continued to abate, according to new data Moody’s Investors Service released this week.