Credit card borrowing ‘keeps going up’

The scale of credit card borrowing across the UK continued to increase last month, according to figures from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA).

Members of the association reported that their customers took on around £7.5 billion worth of added credit card debt over the course of May, which was higher than the average for the past half-year.

Furthermore, the data demonstrated that credit card debt funded more than 100 million purchases last month and more spending was done on plastic during the period than the same month of last year.

Statistics director at the BBA David Dooks said: “People spent more on credit cards, but repayment levels were lower than expected in May and after April’s busy month with people putting money into Isas, personal deposits were not as strong.”

In related news, the Conservative party recently called for the government to clamp down on store card credit lenders who it claims are luring people into levels of debt they cannot manage.

By Dan Mather