Report: Target Customers Have Trouble With Credit-Card Payments

New York City Shares of Target Corp. slipped Wednesday as the retailer offered more evidence that its customers had trouble making their credit-card payments in September, the Associated Press reported.

Shares declined $2.71, or 7.2%, to $34.99 in afternoon trading—not far off their 52-week low of $33.96.

Target said its net charge-off rate, or the amount of loans written off as not being re-paid compared with the size of the entire lending portfolio, rose 10.1% in September.

Target earned $74 million in its credit-card operation for the three months ended Aug. 2, down 65% from a year ago, the report said. The company blamed the decline on lower investment in the portfolio, a higher bad-debt expense resulting from higher write-offs in the current period, and additions to the reserve for the future.