Well, they're never exposed to bad debt or delinquent loans, but they could see processing fee revenue decline if a) there are fewer swipes of the cards by consumers, or b) more consumers have their cards taken away for being bad consumers, and not paying their CC bills on time or at all...
No. Visa/MC works as intermediaries between cardholders and merchants, facilitating the transactions and charging a processing fee per transaction (and fines for disputes). Visa/MC are not involved in the debt side of the business. If a bank goes bust and has CC debt on their books this means these were originated from past transactions. The card organizations get paid by the merchants processing the transactions pretty much in real time, not with a time lag by banks/investors holding the packaged debt.
JPMorgan Takes Aim at Affluent Customers With Sapphire Card http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a4ZBKlfEryqg
Unconfirmed Rumor: Credit Card companies are going to issue 1099's to all Non Paying Credit Card Consumers for the full value of the transaction. Pay us now or deal with the IRS.
You mean, they weren't doing this when they took losses on their balances? Why didn't the IRS get on the CC issuers' asses sooner?