Personal loan puts savings on the cards

CONSOLIDATING credit card debt into a personal loan can save tens of thousands of dollars, as well as years in repayments, new Canstar research revealed.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures revealed $390 million in personal loans had been taken out for debt consolidation as of July; a number that will rise in January as people deal with postChristmas debt and back to school costs.

Personal loans enable debt to be repaid faster, thanks to single digit interest rates on some loans, compared to an average credit card rate of around 17 per cent.

Credit card customers have two cards each on average, so Canstar crunched the numbers to find potential savings, using a case study of a consumer with two credit cards – the first a low-rate card with a $10,000 balance and 11.99 per cent repayment rate; and the other a rewards