Bad borrowing decisions ‘can have lasting effects’

Bad borrowing decisions can have effects that last for years and even decades, it has been suggested.

According to Wendy van den Hende, chief executive of the Personal Finance Education Group, young people often make decision to borrow money that can leave them with a serious debt management headache and a struggle to become debt free.

As a result, it is important that teenagers and consumers aged in their 20s have access to information and advice about financial products and services that could help them avoid long lasting problems, Ms Van den Hende maintains.

“Young people have to make increasingly complex decisions in a very sophisticated world and often at a very early age – they need all the help they can get,” she said.

“They have to make very complex decisions and it is very easy to get it wrong.”

According to a study carried out earlier this year by YouGov on behalf of the Rainer charity group, more than three-quarters of all young Britons have been or are currently in debt.

By Frank Charlton