Consumer credit ‘up £600m in February’

The scale of the UK’s consumer borrowing increased by around £600 million over the course of last month, according to the latest data from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA).

January saw an increase of £400 million and the six month average rise has been £500 million, but the association has described consumer credit activity as having remained subdued.

Millions of people are struggling to become debt free and over the course of February British consumers spent less money on their credit cards than they were able to repay, the BBA reports.

Furthermore, the overall amount of money borrowed through overdrafts fell last month and this figure is now lower than has been the case since April 2006.

“Despite the relative pick-up in February’s reported retail sales, consumer credit and cards in particular continued to be subdued,” said BBA statistics director David Dooks.

At the end of January, the UK’s overall debt management burden was worth close to £1,412 billion, according to figures from Credit Action.