England left lagging on personal finance

Different factors such as average income, unsecured debt, savings and mortgage balances were compared across England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

While the English can boast the highest wage earners and also the highest level of deposit savings, they ranked very badly when it came to consumer debt.

In terms of the amount of unsecured debt by person, the average in England was a huge €5,670 (£3,885), compared to the next biggest of €3,510 (£2,405) in Germany, while in Italy the figure stood at just €1,260 (£864).

This is also reflected in the number of ‘pay later’ cards held by consumers in European countries, with England having the most on average at 1.459, followed by Spain on 0.964 and Germany having the least with 0.295

Alison Wright, Egg’s chief marketing officer, said: “Whilst there are some positive signs in our personal finances, compared with our European counterparts England’s performance is not as strong as it could be.

“We could learn some valuable lessons from our European rivals by making our money work harder for us in key areas. This is particularly true with regards to paying down our short term debt.”