BoE: Consumer credit up in April

Its latest figures show that the increase in loans totalled £9.3 billion last month, up from the £9.2 billion increase in March.

However, this was still below the six month average for growth rates and has led to caution from experts about a rebound, despite an improvement on last year’s spring lending.

Debt levels are said to be limiting the growth in the amount of people taking out a loan or credit.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at Global Insight, commented: “Although unsecured consumer borrowing picked up in April, it was still far from robust.

“This indicates that consumers are cautious about taking on more debt, or at the very least are looking to find less expensive ways of financing their spending.”

Even with the overall increase in consumer credit up at £0.8 billion along with credit card debt, the Bank of England said that the annual growth of consumer credit fell to 7.3 per cent in April.