Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operators Instruction). And we will go first to Scott Valentin with FBR Capital Market.
Scott Valentin
Good morning thanks to taking my questions. Few questions, first, is there any change in customer behavior regarding the line usage and then payment rates and then a second question, given seasonality of credit card asset qualities at the back half of the year showed more weakness, is that consistent with your outlook? Thank you.
Phil Browne
I'll take first Scott, the customer behavior. We are not seeing anything significant in line utilization in the portfolio in fact it’s pretty darn steady. On payments, I think consistent with what we've been saying recently, payment rates are a little softer in the first quarter than they had been which continues a modest transit, you know, it was there in the latter half of last year. Seasonality in the performance of the portfolio is hard to say Scott. I mean, there wasn't a lot of seasonality over the last couple of years with post B.K. reform and a very, very good credit environment overall. And as Dennis mentioned the very early indicators and how to think about them on the entry buckets and I think other than that I don't have a lot to add.
Operator
Thanks. We'll move to Sameer Gokhale at KBW.
Sameer Gokhale
Hi good morning. Just had a few questions, the first one was, you know, in terms of the MasterCard gain? I didn't see that mentioned in the press release and I know you had referenced that number being included in the results for this quarter, it had been included last quarter, but just if you can clarify the difference in the presentation between the Visa gains this quarter versus the MasterCard gains and the difference in the line, that will be helpful? The other question I had was just to get some clarification on the transaction volume growth, you know 1.4% year-over-year. I know you talked about the decline in balance transfer volumes and soft mean purchase volume, but would you straight out those two components on a year-over-year basis so we can see those – and then the last question I had was, can you give us some more clarity in terms of underwriting on new accounts, what specifically you have changed there given that historically you were focused more on the kind of prime, super-prime customer segment in terms of FICO scores, but have you done anything on top of that to kind of tighten up your underwriting standards? Thank you.
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