Bad Credit Mortgage Uk
Click a Flag to Translate the page
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Comment: good and bad news on dangers of debt
Bad debt and good profit figures announced by the Big Five banks this week were already having them cast as villains before Thursday's surprise interest rate rise.
Should we join the chorus of criticism about wicked lenders, forcing credit down the throats of the public - as one radio pundit recently put it? Certainly not. For starters, debt ain't necessarily a bad thing. It enables most of us to buy homes we could never afford to pay for outright, to give just one example of how mass marketing of credit has become the cornerstone of modern economies. Nor, for that matter, is an interest rate rise necessarily bad news for everyone or even most people. There are seven savers for every borrower and the quarter-point rise in base rates to 4.75pc will tend to mean better returns for that silent majority.Barclays sets aside £1.05bn to cover its UK bad debtors
BARCLAYS today put an intensifying spotlight on the country's growing personal debt culture when it revealed it had set aside £1.05 billion over the first-half of 2006 to cover bad debt - a rise of 50 per cent on the previous year.
Much of the increase in so-called "impairment" charges was down to the bank's Barclaycard credit card division, where it saw impairment grow by 37 per cent to £696 million.
.Ten Steps To Defeat Your Debts
There's been a lot of doom and gloom about the UK's growing debt problem in the financial pages in the last week or so. First, the UK's five biggest banks announced their half-yearly results. Although their combined profits climbed 21% to reach £19.3 billion, bad debts soared by 29% to reach £5.8 billion. That's a lot of poor lending decisions!
Second, figures from the Department of Trade & Industry showed that over 26,000 people became insolvent or bankrupt in the second quarter of this year, up two-thirds (66%) on the same period in 2005 (learn more in Britain's Going Bust!). Third, mortgage repossessions hit 8,140 in the first half of 2006, which is the highest figure for five years, although moderate by historical standards.
For the record, this government has presided over the biggest increase in personal debt in UK history, with the total rising from under £500 billion in April 1997 to £1,228 billion in June 2006.
|