The end of 0% Credit Cards?

webmasterpolo

Looks like Sainbury's Bank is still coming up with the good offers:

"At the end of October Sainsbury’s Bank launched a credit card offering 0% on introductory purchases and balance transfers for 12 months."

Source MSN Money
http://money.msn.co.uk/MyMoney/Insight/BigMoneyMatters/ThisMonth/default.asp

MSE_Martin

Official MSE.com comment on this

"Pants and er..... Pants"

Ok let's start with the MSN article above. The Sainsbury card has been around a while and it is 0% for 12 months on purchase, not balance transfers! Don't know how they got it wrong. The only change recently was a 0.25% cashback as an alternative to nectar poitns (see my article best card for purchases).


However my real PANTS is reserved to PWC. Why it has come out saying this i've no clue. The amount of money CC's loose by people tarting is dwarfed by the amount of money made by people tarting badly. 0% offers build businesses, build (ugh) loyalty, and trap customers in. They allow cross sellig of other products and build profitability.

Of course the life of balance and low standard rate argument has limited appeal, and those looking for Stable Relationship cards will be drawn in. Remember though 0% for 9 months then 15% with a base rate environment of 5% - it doesn't take many months to recoup the cost.

0%s are here to stay for the forseeable future. The number of 0% cards is growing not shrinking. Any company pulling out of the market would loose substantial business. The card market is a volume business, and 0% builds volume.

Do you think PWC stands for

Pants With Cards?

Martin

(sorry for the stream of consciousness)

deemy2004

My heart bleeds for 'em  ::) ;D

How do they come out with a figure of £1 billion per year ?

Its probably been overly exaggerated and rounded up to the nearest billion, the real cost i.e. in actual costs of interest to the credit card companies on debt correctly stooze,d is probably far less than £1 billion. I bet their calcing the figure by taking what they would have earned at some daft apr if their was no 0% stoozing available, which is not the same as actual interest costs.

Martinslovechild

Do you think PWC stands for

Pants With Cards?

Martin

Prats with Cards more like ;D

queenofbargains

Well here I am browsing the forums just after registering for the first time and who should appear on my local news talking about this very subject but the one and only MSE - Martin Lewis!!!!

I know you believe in good customer relations Martin, but this really is exceptional !!

ffacoffipawb

Official MSE.com comment on this

"Pants and er..... Pants"

Do you think PWC stands for

Pants With Cards?

Price Waterhouse Coopers

or "Monday" ........

http://www.introducingmonday.co.uk/

Making an !!!!!! of us?

Joe_Bloggs

That 'Monday' name change thing is insanity. My take on PWC is Plonkers with Charts.
J_B.

deemy2004

Prat in the White Couse

GWbler was never good at spellin

Irf_2

It seems that PWC are overlooking that it's the CC co's themselves who have created this problem. They have been greedy in charging high interest rates, forcing us to look at ways of reducing our losses. Secondly, they (and almost every other financial institution) treat new customers much better than existing ones. So why should existing customers stay and line their pockets?

Idiots! Surely it would be better to keep customers happy by treating them well?

Irf.

Gotabiscuit

After all, aren't we're supposed to live in a free market economy where the consumer benefits from competition in the market place?