UK credit card limits slashed by £3.1bn
Posted 2008-04-6
British consumers have seen their credit card limits slashed by a total of £3.1 billion over the course of just six months, it has emerged.
Some 1.8 million credit card customers have had credit limits cuts by an average of £1,600 since last November, new research from MoneyExpert.com has found.
Credit card provider Egg aroused intense media criticism after voiding the cards of 161,000 of its high-risk customers earlier this year, but according to the latest study that incident was far from an isolated event.
Sean Gardner, chief executive of the financial website, said that credit card companies are becoming increasingly stricter about whom they lend to and how much money customers are allowed to borrow.
"Overstretched consumers might look to resort to credit in a bid to make ends meet but they should not rely on it as a way of keeping spending," Mr Gardner cautioned. "The warning lights should be shining brightly
if you find youre going from card to card without making a dent in the amount you owe."
As of February 2008, UK consumers owed an estimated £54.8 billion on their credit cards.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:37 am
This was bound to happen at some stage, over the last few years it has become so so easy to get a credit card, but not only that ones with a ridiculous limit as well.
Just before Christmas I applied for a credit card with MBNA, I have a fairly good wage, but the limit I was given was far more than I ever expected. I could have bought a very nice second hand car with the money.
I see some of my friend that have 4 or 5 credit cards, all of them maxed out, I am not sure how they can live that way.