Cash withdrawals become costly for credit card customers

03/04/2007

Recent research has highlighted that using the hole in the wall to withdraw cash with your credit card can be very costly in terms of interest.

According to the figures from uswitch the interest rates for credit card cash withdrawals has rapidly escalated over the last 2 years, even with these hikes consumers seem to not realise and continue to make costly withdrawals.

During 2005 figures from the DTI (Department of trade And Industry) suggested that around £145 billion was being paid in interest yearly.

There seem to be many factors that have influenced interest rate increases many are to focus on the huge losses credit card providers have made as a result of regulatory pressures on penalty fees. The consequence of this has been to charge more for cash withdrawals by raising interest and other associated fees.

A spokeperson from uswitch commented “'Consumers could be forgiven for thinking that they are being treated as the banking industry’s personal ATM. It's easy to see why the major banks continue to announce record profits, which this year alone totalled in excess of £40 billion, when the welfare of their customers continues to take a backseat to shareholder.