Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Well the banks are still struggling to find enough cash to keep the financial industry wheels moving. You can tell that times are hard because while ordinary people are struggling to pay the electicity bills, gas bills, and mortgage repayments, the bankers are still sitting in their plush offices in some of the highest priced office space in the country. No doubt they shed a tear for us all as they sup fine wines over an expensive lunch.
They brought it all on themselves. The credit crunch wasn’t caused by the customers. We have all been doing our best to keep them in business and we have all racked up huge debts and enabled the banks to make vast profits on our debts. We have definitely been doing our bit to help them, intentionally or otherwise.
I was looking at a credit card statement just the other day. The interest rate is listed at about 20% APR.
The Bank Of England rate setting committe agreed to maintain the bank rate at just 5% so why are interest rates on credit cards so high? I have often wondered about this in the past. I don’t remember exactly what the interst rate on credit cards was when the bank rate was around 10% or so but I have a sneaky feeling it was about 28%
If that is right then the current rate should be about 14% APR and that would sound about right to me. 20% APR with a bank rate a quarter of that is simply excessive. They rip us off because they can but times are changing and people are becoming far more aware of how the banks have treated us as a stupid cash cow for so many years.
The banks are famously unhelpful when you need help badly. Maybe the banks will find that the great british public will be less than helpful when they are crying out for customers to keep the fine wines flowing with their dinners and th rents paid on their luxury offices.
So, should we feel sorry for the bankers? Yes, of course. We should care as much for them as they care for us. i.e. not one tiny little bit
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 11:58 am
The Office Of Fair Trading has announced that they are to work with the credit card industry to make the costs involved with using different credit cards clearer and easier to understand by consumers.
The OFT will work with the credit card industry, consumer and government bodies and the results are expected to be published in about 6 months time.
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 10:37 am
There are suggestions that Barclaycard is planning on introducing a low-usage fee for credit card holders who are not using their credit cards as often as Barclaycard feels they should to justify keeping the account open.
No details have emerged as to the specifics, as yet, but this would be a win-win move for Barclaycard if they were to proceed with this plan. It will hit those customers who have taken out low-interest for the life of the balance users. Barclaycard has offered some very good deals for these types of transfers and as the interest rate has risen some of these transfers will now be at interest rates lower than the bank rate.
If this plan by Barclaycard comes off then account holders who do not make additional purchases using the credit card will have an additional fee applied to their accounts. The interest on that fee would almost certainly not be paid off until after the whole low balance transfer amount has been paid off. This scenario would probably also apply to anyone making a purchase to avoid the additional fee.
It is standard practice on balance transfer deals that any payments go towards paying off the balance transfer before any payment is made to clear additional purchases. This is why it is recommended that if you take out a balance transfer deal to a credit card you avoid using that card for any purchases until you have cleared that transfer balance.
Barclaycard seems to be “testing the water†at the moment to see how their customers react to this suggestion but I suspect the temptation will be strong and they will go ahead with this extra charge at some point in the future.
