Lloyd's bank changing their interest rates?

sporkafife

I've had my Lloyd's platinum credit card for about 6 months now, and today I recieved a letter saying they're "changing the way they calculate your interest rate". My interest rate was 10.9%, and the letter now says that they are "linking their interest rate to the Bank of England base rate", and my new interest rate is "10.69% + 0.25% Bank of England base rate". So my new interest rate is now 10.94%. It's a tiny increase, but surely it's an increase nonetheless, and I haven't yet had the card for 12 months. Surely that means they cannot do this, or have they got around it by being all fancy and "changing the way it's calculated" instead of saying g they've increased it?

[Deleted User]

Check what your interest rate was. The underlying rate often goes to 2 decimal places (unlike the APR) so I would suspect it's still the same.

sporkafife

The letter also states that whenever the bank of England base rate changes, the increase (or decrease) will apply to my credit card interest rate from the next working day. Surely that also breaks the "no more than one increase every 6 months" credit card summit agreements.

Dobbibill

The letters are standard and in being sent out at the moment, saw another poster say about a similar from Halifax (same banking group).

Letter normally says something along the lines of your interest rate is not changing, just the way we calculate it.

[Deleted User]

Again, no. The base rate element is variable - it is what they call the 'personal' rate part that can only be changed a maximum of every 6 months.

Ben8282

My interest rate was linked to the Bank of England base rate by Lloyds years ago. When interest rates decreased a little while ago the interest rate went down.

MABLE

sporkafife wrote: »

I've had my Lloyd's platinum credit card for about 6 months now, and today I recieved a letter saying they're "changing the way they calculate your interest rate". My interest rate was 10.9%, and the letter now says that they are "linking their interest rate to the Bank of England base rate", and my new interest rate is "10.69% + 0.25% Bank of England base rate". So my new interest rate is now 10.94%. It's a tiny increase, but surely it's an increase nonetheless, and I haven't yet had the card for 12 months. Surely that means they cannot do this, or have they got around it by being all fancy and "changing the way it's calculated" instead of saying g they've increased it?

Be like me and pay the card off every month and that way the interest rate does not matter. Obviously if I am on a promotional rate then that does not apply. BTW my rate is 10.9 percent.

Missus_Hyde

MABLE wrote: »

Be like me and pay the card off every month and that way the interest rate does not matter. Obviously if I am on a promotional rate then that does not apply. BTW my rate is 10.9 percent.

Agreed; it matters little to me what the interest rate is on any of our CC's as we always pay off everything in full every month.