Consumer credit activity “subdued”

The level of consumer credit activity around the UK was “subdued” last month, according to the British Bankers’ Association’s (BBA) assessment of its own statistics.

According to the latest data, an additional £400 million was borrowed by consumers around the country in January 2008, which was below the average increase in activity for the previous six months.

With millions of people struggling to become debt free in the UK, the figures from the BBA also showed that softlink=”credit_card_debt”>credit card debt repayments were worth more than the amounts borrowed on plastic during the first month of this year.

The data released by the BBA is based on the business conducted by Britain’s foremost banking groups in recent weeks.

David Brooks, the organisation’s statistics director, commented: “Overall consumer credit remained subdued.”

“Despite strong volumes of retail sales, card transaction volumes were little changed and spending was more than offset by repayments.”

Earlier this month, the UK’s payments association Apacs reported that close to £11.3 billion in credit card debt was accumulated nationwide over the course of December 2007.