Mine have been keen for me to have a credit card for my business. I got one, but I doubt it will ever be used.

Ocean Finance made a return to the advertising schedules yesterday. They have been absent for a long time. I am noting an increase in those “pay day’ loan sites. As well as the “broken/unwanted gold” merchants popping up on TV and in various shopping centres, I am also noticing a higher number of pawn brokers appearing.

There is certainly far fewer banks advertising loans. They are pushing savings, though how they can claim a good deal based on the pitiful interest rates they are offering, it doesn’t tempt me to want to move my money anywhere. I’d lose more in the time it takes than I’d make in the interest I’d be paid.

The banks are trying to raise their deposits because it improves their capital ratios but they are still cutting back credit. So no matter what the government do about reform the credit is going to be cut, they might threaten that reforms will cut it quicker but they will not lend because all the collateral is overvalued and worthless as security for the banks until the deleveraging has completed. We are in for a long downward path and very little will change it. Bank regulations are too lax about leverage and the coalition would have done nothing differently so the claims that it was a Labour crisis are false. I still expect a major financial crisis within a decade probably by 2017, which will force governments to act together or even alone.

be careful with some of these credit cards especially MBNA (Maryland Bank National Association) as a lot of banks use them for their cards
they have away of letting you get to your limit (after increasing it) and then start raising the interest rate by massive steps 10% at a time

as my wife found out, from 13.5% to 39.9%, in a couple of easy steps over a very short period of time (less then 18 months)
luckily we are/were able to clear the balance in one go then cancel the card, others may not be in such a position to do so …

MBNA = Maryland Bank of North America, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America.

When I used to work for them (about 7 years ago) the only time they would ever up interest rates was on badly maintained accounts (over limit / late payment etc.). However, they have been taken over since then, so things may have changed. Even then, the highest rates I saw were ~25%.

sorry to say i still have the letter that they sent too my wife
and it goes along the lines of 'due to these harsh economic times we are forced to increase your interest rates to 39.9%'

the card was held for over 7 years no missed payments (ever) as a DD was in place and the card had been cleared at least twice in that time also the credit limit was set at £2500 but raised by them to £5000 over a period of 4 years

as stated lukily we are and still are in a postion to clear this amount without much effort and tell them where to get off
maybe my wife should ask me first as she moved over to barclay card whom i myself am with at an interest rate of 6.8% …



apologies for the edit …

Did you close the account? That would stop the interest rate going up.

absolutely 'yes' and the account was cleared in full …

Wow, that's really bad. Another reason I'm glad I left them in that case.

the banks are screwing people all over the place and most credit card companies know who/whom that can not pay off the balance
so increase interest rates to capture the money from those least able to clear the debt

and this is happening to millions of people in this country

burn a banker a day, its the only way
this will also save on energy costs …

Anyone else been horrified by the appearance of the adverts for payday loans? You know, the ones with interest rates in excess of 2500% APR.
I just about fell of my chair when I saw the first one (wonga.com I think).

That's the annual rate. Considering these loans are short-term, it's the only way to get a decent return in interest.

I know it's the annual rate but it's still pretty horiffic but I suppose if you're that desperate to borrow a tenner for 3 days then there isn't much option. Can't help but thinking it's a very slippery slope though.

And why have all the previous governments refused to clamp down on loan sharking and extortionate rates? Because the banks thought that it would impact them.

I don't know about the coalition government, but the previous government, when asked about interest rates of 2500%+, stated that they'd rather people be able to borrow from actual licensed vendors at high interest rates than have to turn to illegal loan sharks (and all the perils that comes with).

The coalition have not made a statement about it yet, but with interest rates so low I would have not expected anything to have been said as it does not affect the masses. The previous Conservative had spoken out against such reform, and Labour made a pathetic comment but that was it. There is never an acceptable reason for any rates higher than 50% for any creditor. If the banks feel that the debtor is such a risk that 50% rates are applicable then they should not be lending to people that risky.