Credit card bills top £16.6bn in just one month

BRITAIN’S love affair with credit cards has reached new heights, with households spending a record £16.6billion last month.

This was up from £16.1billion in June and although households also increased repayments, it could not stop the amount owed on credit cards hitting a record high of £68.7billion.

According to the Bank of England, total short-term debt, including credit cards, loans, car finance and overdrafts, also rose in July. It was up by £1.2billion to £201.5billion – the highest level since December 2008. The annual rate of growth for consumer borrowing slowed to 9.8 per cent, the lowest rate of expansion since April 2016, but it still means Britons are racking up debt at almost five times the growth rate of wages and borrowing at levels not seen since the financial crisis.

Peter Tutton, of the StepChange Debt Charity, said: ‘We must remain vigilant that a credit bubble is not history repeating.’