Experts warn credit card balance transfer deals 'will get harder to find'
Published On 17 April 2008
An industry expert has warned that consumers may find it more difficult to find cheap balance transfer deals for their credit card debt.Beccy Boden-Wilks, a spokesperson for National Debtline, explained that the credit crunch would drastically reduce the number of balance transfer deals that consumers could find to manage their credit card borrowing.
What's more, she suggested that this could have a serious knock-on effect which could have forced people to make some difficult financial decisions.
"We've lived in period where we've had very cheap, accessible credit; people would just keep doing nought per cent balance transfers.
"One of the major effects of the credit crunch is that people can't manage their large amount of debt as cheaply as they could before; this is having a knock-on effect.
"We're seeing increases in mortgage arrears. If people can't afford their non-priority debts anymore sometimes they'll stop paying their mortgage as well. It's definitely having a knock-on effect."
Recent figures from MoneyExpert indicated that the rate of interest credit card companies are typically changing has increased from 16.56 per cent to 17.12 per cent over the last six months.
