Total Personal debt in the UK
- People in the UK owed £1.633 trillion at the end of February 2019- an increase of 3% in one month.
- The average debt per adult is £31,148, which is 113% of average earnings.
Spending
- In Q4 2018, households in the UK spent £111.08 million a day on water, electricity and gas, or £4.05 per household per day. On a seasonally adjusted basis, this was 2.1% more than in Q3 2018.
- In the year to January 2019, consumer credit increased by 6.5% according to UK Finance, while outstanding levels of credit card borrowing grew by 6.7%, significantly down on the rate of growth in early 2018.
Consumer Credit Debt
- At the end of February 2019, outstanding consumer credit lending was £216.3 billion, decreasing by 0.7% against the previous month. Within the total, outstanding credit card debt came to £72.6 billion, an average of £2,649 per household and £1,386 per adult.
- The average interest rate on credit card lending bearing interest was 19.81% in March 2019. This is 19.06% above the Bank of England Base Rate of 0.75%.
- A credit card on the average interest rate would take 26 years and 7 months to repay, making only the legal minimum repayments (interest plus 1% of the outstanding balance) each month. The minimum repayment in the first month would be £65 but would reduce each month. If £65 were paid every month, the debt would be cleared in 5 years and 4 months.
Mortgages, Rent and Housing
- Outstanding mortgage lending stood at £1.417 trillion at the end of February 2019. This is up from £1.374 trillion a year earlier.
- That means that the estimated average outstanding mortgage for the 10.9 million households with mortgage debt was £129,490 in February 2019.
- The average mortgage interest rate was 2.46% at the end of February. Based on this, households with mortgages would pay an average of £3,185 in mortgage interest over the year.
- For new loans, the average mortgage interest rate was 2.1%. Using the latest figures from UK Finance, this means new mortgages would attract an average of £3,434 in interest over the year.