Darling urges creditors to be cautious

Creditors should be more cautious about lending money to British consumers, according to the chancellor Alistair Darling.

Debt management has put serious financial strain on millions of families around the UK and Mr Darling maintains that both lenders and borrowers need to consider more carefully whether a particular credit arrangement is appropriate.

Speaking to the Telegraph newspaper recently, the chancellor suggested that here have been instances of lenders not taking enough care to ensure consumers are in a position to pay off their debts.

“Institutions themselves need to open their own eyes and be more honest,” he said.

“They [borrowers] need to ask themselves, ‘can I repay this?’ and lenders need to ask themselves, ‘If it goes wrong can I get it back?”

Earlier this year, the KPMG accountancy firm predicted that more than 130,000 Britons would be declared insolvent over the course of 2007.