UK debt problems ‘persist’

People in the UK continue to be plagued by debt problems, new figures have suggested.

According to Credit Action’s monthly statistics, total UK personal debt currently stands at £1,457 billion, while the 12-month growth remained at 0.8 per cent.

It means individuals still owe more than the whole countries produces in a year.

Moreover, the report showed total lending in June increased by £0.6 billion.

It forecast 391 individuals will be declared insolvent or bankrupt every day of the year, which works out at one person every 51 seconds of the working day.

And in England and Wales, Citizen Advice Bureaus dealt with 9,562 new debt problems every 24 hours.

According to the report, 1,000 consumers are looking to gain some form of debt rescheduling during each working day, while UK residents saved an average of just £2.76 per diem.

The average household debt now stands at £8,650 excluding mortgages, but escalates to £57,809 when property repayments are taken into consideration.

It means the average owed by every adult across the nation is £29,928 – including mortgages – which equates at 127 per cent of average earnings.

Interest repayments on personal debt in Britain were £67.3 billion in the last 12 months, with the average amount paid by each household calculating at approximately £2,669 each year.

Furthermore, consumer borrowing via such means as credit cards and retail finance deals rose to £4,478 per UK adult at the end of June.

Recent figures from the Insolvency Service showed bankruptcy among women to be of growing concern, as the amount of females who found themselves in this situation swelled by 28 per cent last year.

By Amy White