Britons owe £52bn in personal loans, says BBA

Britons owed a combined £52bn in personal loans to high street banks in February, according to new figures released this week.

The British Bankers’ Association (BBA) conducted a study which found that the total value of new loans issued during the month was £1.3bn.

This represented a rise of £100m on the figure for January, and on the average monthly value recorded for the six months prior to February.

“New personal loans increased slightly in February possibly as the car scrappage scheme was extended by a further month but gross lending was largely matched by higher repayments,” noted the BBA.

The new statistics also indicated that high street banks had £9.3bn in net overdraft lending outstanding last month, which was £0.2bn lower than the January figure.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service revealed recently that personal loans account for over a third of the total debt accrued by its customers.

The charity revealed that it now has over 100,000 debt management plans in place, with personal loans making up 39% of the overall £3.3bn in unsecured debt.

Source: compareandsave.com