LONDON - Britons overspend about £350 a month on their credit cards without being aware of it, says a new study conducted by the online bank Egg.
The report says that consumers in the country believe that they spend £418 a month on their credit cards, whereas industry figures show the amount to be somewhere in the region of £775. When calculated on a yearly basis this figure widens the credit card gap to as much as £4,284. On the whole this credit card gap reaches a massive £201 billion a year in the UK.
To top this, 52 percent of the respondents in Egg Bank's survey were not sure how much they exactly spent on their cards. Andy Deller, Egg’s chief marketing officer put these findings in perspective and said, "Plastic is clearly the choice of the UK consumer when it comes to spending, but our Egg Money research clearly indicates that the increasingly complex nature of our finances means it is often hard to keep track of how much we are spending."
Consumers often find to their consternation that the end of the month brings a forgotten Direct Debit notice telling them that they are over their limit. To counteract this, almost 1 in 3 respondents on the Egg survey said that separating their spending account from all other accounts might help them keep track of their money in a better manner.
"As a dedicated spending account, Egg Money is designed to counteract this confusion enabling consumers to manage, control and understand their money more effectively, potentially helping them to avoid overspending," said Deller. Egg Money provides customers with budgeting tools, text message alerts and a spending analyzer so that they can track their money easily.
However, based on the data from the last two months, it does appear that UK's love affair with plastic is losing its intensity. Consumers have reined in spending and the British Bankers Association has said that credit card holders paid off more debts in August than previous months.
Posted
on : Sun, 16 Oct 2005 13:10 GMT | Credit Cards News
By : Chris Rowe
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