Charge offs and delinquencies improve nearly across the board

Instances of both defaulted and delinquent accounts improved for nearly every credit card lender in the U.S. during the month of April. All of the nation's top credit card lenders reported fewer instances of accounts that fell 30 days or more behind in payments, and charge off rates on those accounts that are so late they're considered uncollectable dropped for five of the six institutions, according to a report from Reuters.

Only Bank of America, the lender with the highest rate of charge offs, saw the action increase, from 8.18% of accounts to 8.25%. However, its delinquency rate dropped significantly, to 4.52% from 4.8%.

One way for consumers to avoid falling behind in their credit card payments is to seek out cards with lower rates [insert link to rate tables]. Doing so will help them to avoid higher costs if they have to carry a balance from one month to another.

Once again, American Express, which tends to have a more affluent cardholder base, saw the fewest instances of delinquency and default in April, at 1.7% and 3.5%, respectively, the report said. That was down from 1.8% and 3.7% in March.