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OPINION

Consumer credit booms

Consumer credit booms
January 4, 2017
Consumer credit booms

With the housing market at multi-year highs, unemployment at multi year lows, interest rates at rock bottom and stock markets setting new record highs, perhaps it is of little surprise that consumers feel a little more free and easy about their spending. Indeed, unsecured consumer lending rose by 10.8 per cent in November to £192.2bn, dangerously close to the record peak of £208bn hit in September 2008. Of the latest total, credit card debt was at a record high of £66.7bn.

As the chart shows, the recovery in consumer lending has been rapid and sustained since the short period following the financial crisis when consumers reversed their borrowing and spent more than three years paying back debts on a net basis.