Which Wants OFT To Investigate How Interest Charges Are Calculated
‘Which’ the consumers association reports that it has asked the OFT to conduct an investigation into the way that different banks and credit card suppliers are calculating interest charges.
They found that the APR figures given for different cards were not a valid way of making comparisons between different cards. People using credit cards that have the same APR and are used in similar ways might find that they are actually paying different levels of interest.
The whole purpose of APR figures is to enable consumers to make sensible choices so we should hope that we can rely on the figures it produces. On the other hand the different ways interest is charged on different cards can be used to benefit the consumer as long as they are fully aware of how interest is calculated and are able to choose the cards they choose to use based on whether it is suitable. I’m inclined to think that we do need to have more information made available to us on our credit card statements so we really understand how interest is calculated.
It’s what this website is all about, educating consumers about personal finance.
