No one can deny that we in the UK love our plastic. In 2005, there were nearly 142 million payment cards in issue, with 70 million of these being credit cards, 67 million debit cards and around 5 million charge cards. This means that, on average, we each have 2.4 credit cards and 1.6 debit cards in our pockets. Blimey!
So what on earth are we doing with all of these cards? Well, spending seems to be pretty high on the agenda. According to the UK payments association APACS, we spent over £292 billion on our cards last year – that’s four times more than a decade ago, with over £122 billion on credit cards alone. It is perhaps unsurprising that according to the British Bankers Association we owed over £66 billion on our credit cards at the end of March, 75% of which was interest bearing debt!…
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