Unlike the huge mortgage loan modification programs that are taking place, which address thousands of mortgages at once, workouts for credit card customers are still being handled on a case-by-case basis.

In addition to debt forgiveness, debt collectors are allowing many delinquent borrowers to pay down their debt over the course of a year rather than the standard six months.

Paul Hunziker, the chairman of Capital Management Services, said that before this downturn, his firm put only about a quarter of all borrowers into longer-term repayment plans. Now, it puts about half on such plans.

Some lenders are also reaching out to borrowers shortly after they fall behind on their payments to try to avoid having to write off the account. Others are reaching out to customers who seem likely to fall behind. Just as lenders competed for years to be the first card to be taken out of the wallet, they are now competing to be the first ones paid back.

And realizing that millions more consumers are likely to default on their credit card bills in the coming months, the banking industry has started lobbying regulators to make it more advantageous to lenders to extend payment terms or forgive debt.

In an unusual alliance, the Financial Services Roundtable, one of the industry’s biggest lobbyists, and the Consumer Federation of America recently proposed a credit card loan modification program, which was rejected by regulators.

Under the plan, lenders would have forgiven about 40 percent of what was owed by individual borrowers over five years. Lenders could report the loss once whatever part of the debt was repaid, instead of shortly after default, as current accounting rules require. That would allow them to write off less later. Borrowers would have been allowed to defer any tax payments owed on the forgiven debt.