With recent months as economically challenging as they have been for the mortgage and lending industries and the housing market, it should come as no surprise that expert economists and financial thinkers are keeping a close watch on the credit card debt situation. Many are concerned that credit card debt could experience a similar bubble burst type of disaster, meaning even more losses for financially struggling lending institutions.

According to a widely published January 23, 2007, Associated Press report, Capital One experienced significant fourth quarter profit loss. One of the nation’s leading credit card companies, Capital One saw a 42 percent reduction in profit as compared to the previous year’s fourth quarter earnings. American Express also, according to recent reports, experienced fourth quarter losses of just under 10 percent. Some fear that this could be a part of a trend, as financially strapped consumers struggle to make ends meet.

The New York Times recently reported that “credit card debt is growing at the fastest rate in years,” pointing out that the rate of growth “may signal coming trouble for the banks that issue them.” According to MarketWatch.com, this increase in debt seems to be because “consumers loaded up on credit-card debt to make up for a loss in the purchasing power they once wielded by refinancing mortgages during the real-estate boom.” Delinquencies in credit card debt payments are starting to edge up, and not only among those with bad credit.

Lenders and investors throughout the word are still staggering from the blows they took during the bursting of the housing bubble and the mortgage and lending meltdown, and most economists agree that neither of those situations have reached bottom yet. With the potential financial danger involved with a similar crisis happening in the credit card market, there will be many eyes – those in America and beyond – watching those numbers during the next few months.