NEW YORK — While monthly default rates declined for first mortgage and bank card loans, the same could not be said for second mortgages and auto loans.

Standard & Poor's and Experian discovered that auto loan default rates increased to 1.9 percent from 1.6 percent, while second mortgage default rates increased to 2.8 percent from 2.4 percent in June.

Basically, looking at data that is not seasonally adjusted nor subject to revision, the companies found that auto loan defaults came in at 1.96 percent in July, up 15.77 percent from July, but down 20.18 percent from July of last year.

"After seeing consumer credit card defaults decline in recent months, this data shows rising defaults in four of the five highlighted cities and nationally in second mortgages and auto loans," explained David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's. "While it is too soon to tell if this is a momentary aberration or a major shift, combined with some economic news, these data do raise concerns.

"The largest category, first mortgages, continues to see improvements in default patterns. Auto loans saw defaults rise after six straight months of declines. Among the highlighted cities, only Los Angeles saw lower consumer defaults in July compared to the first half of the year when at most, one of the five cities saw worsening defaults in any month. Other data, from various sources, showed that credit card debt outstanding continued to decline through June; housing market conditions were mixed and auto sales are running well ahead of 2009," he continued.

Continuing on, New York showed the largest increase in defaults in the last month at 6.99 percent. Meanwhile, as Blitzer indicated, Los Angeles was the only one of the five metropolitan statistical areas to experience a decrease of 3.46 percent.

The sharpest decline over the last 12 months was in Miami with 46.21 percent.