Borrowers facing more debt problems

19/07/2007

According to latest research, Britons owe around £100bn in debts.

Results showed that consumers actually owe twice as much on loans, overdrafts and credit cards.

Mintel said an average person felt they owed £5,251 in unsecured debt; however looking at BOE figures this was nearly double at £10,300.

Nearly 43% of people over the age of 18 owed money via credit cards, loans and overdrafts, however one in five said they were concerned about the debt, which had to be completed in time.

Nearly 11% of slight well-off families were using credit to complete payments such as tax bills and the same amount of card holders were using it to make standard payments, phone bills.

Senior finance analyst at Mintel, Toby Clark commented, “While Britons do seem to have a good grasp of their mortgage borrowing, they are wildly under-estimating the amount of money they owe on credit cards and loans.“

Clearly, it is a lot easier to keep an eye on a single mortgage than it is to juggle a couple of credit cards, a personal loan, a car loans and maybe even an overdraft as well.”