MSE News: Financial regulator to probe credit card market

Trix3y

Fact many people are just about surviving during this recession. Fact many people are in low paid minimum wage jobs with no future prospects or rises in wages to look forward too. Fact if renting cost of housing is very high as are all basic bills ie heating,water and food. Fact JSA and the basic state pension are not enough to live on. So please all you above posters understand that some people feel they have no choice but to use credit cards. There are of course some who simply live beyond their means and do not know how to budget,however, this does not represent all of the population

Herbalus

Trix3y wrote: »

So please all you above posters understand that some people feel they have no choice but to use credit cards.

I understand that some people think that, but I also think they are wrong. There is not "no choice but to use a credit card" - there is always a choice, always, and people who refute that are wrong in my opinion. It sounds to me like excuses.

What I don't understand is people thinking they can take money and agree to pay it back while knowing that they won't be able to.

Also, I'm a student, so I know what it's like to live without a lot of money.

antrobus

freddy33 wrote: »

At last-an official enquiry into the credit card market. I think I'm right in saying that this is an industry in which the average rate of interest has almost doubled in the past 10 years?! Whatever, I also believe that there will be egg on a few faces once the results of the probe are made public. Let's wait and see.

The Bank of England says you are wrong.

Their data series CFMHSDG detailing the Monthly average of UK resident monetary financial institutions' ... sterling weighted average interest rate, credit card loans to households ...shows that the rate was 17.4% for February 2014 compared to 14.69% for February 2004, or 17.97% in February 1999.

So, the average rate of interest on credit cards has not "almost doubled" in the past 10 years. It would be more accurate to state the the average rate of interest on credit cards fell over the years 1999-2003 (down as low as 13.5%), increased over the years 2004-2010 (up as high as almost 19%), but are now declining and back to where they started.

dumpyboy

BillJones wrote: »

If you have drank a bit too much, and the room's starting to spin, may I ask, do you turn to the bar staff to ask what you should do next? Maybe ask them to recommend you a good cocktail for someone about to throw up on their shoes?

But you have the choice in the bar to leave, when you owe them you have to do as they say or pay the full amount to close the account

newuser78

I am 34 and have never had a credit card as I never needed one but you know what? I regret not getting one simply because having a credit card is logged as "positive" in your credit file rating.:wall: