New York - Data through February 2011, released today by Standard & Poor's and Experian for the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices, a comprehensive measure of changes in consumer credit defaults, showed a decline in monthly default rates across all credit lines. Second Mortgages and bank card indices declined to 1.46% and 5.67% respectively. Auto Loan experienced a small decrease to 1.58%. First mortgage defaults fell to 2.45% with a monthly decline of over 14%.

"Default rates continue to fall across all major categories and year over year across the five high-lighted cities. The overall trend has lasted a number of months now, reflecting improved consumer health and the appearance of continued economic recovery," says Craig Feldman, Director at S&P Indices.

Consumer credit defaults varied across major cities and regions of the U.S. Among the five major Metropolitan Statistical Areas reported each month in this release, Los Angeles experienced a steady decrease in defaults this month to 2.70%. New York and Miami followed the trend with default rates of 2.53% and 6.05%. Dallas had the largest decrease in default rates to 1.78%. Chicago had an increase in defaults to 2.83%.