The health of mortgages improved through the third quarter compared with a year ago, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a federal banking regulator, said in a release. At the end of the quarter, nearly 94 percent of mortgages were current and performing, compared with 93 percent the same time last year. The percentage of mortgages that were 30 to 59 days past due was 2.3 percent of the portfolio, a 4.4 percent decrease from a year earlier. Seriously delinquent mortgages, those that were 60 or more days past due or held by bankrupt borrowers whose payments are 30 days or more past due, made up 2.6 percent of the portfolio, a 16 percent drop from a year earlier. Mortgage performance improved slightly from the previous quarter. Foreclosure activity also declined. Reporting servicers initiated 64,156 new foreclosures during the third quarter, down from 82,668 a year earlier. The number of mortgages in the process of foreclosure at the end of the third quarter of 2015 was 269,751, a decrease of 23.8 percent from a year earlier.