Shopping around for the best credit card rate

Over the last few weeks the headlines in the credit card industry have been fairly downbeat with the vast majority of credit card companies increasing their rates over the last few months. However, we are starting to see signs, albeit few and far between at the moment, of credit card companies trimming some of their rates for specific areas of the credit card market. While this is unlikely to turn into a short term collapse in credit card interest rates it does give hope for the future.

There is no doubt that credit card companies have been pushing their rates higher and higher over the last few months to try and protect their profit margins and reduce the impact of bad debts. However, as we have mentioned on numerous occasions, this has turned into something of a self fulfilling prophecy with higher rates putting more people under pressure and increasing bad debts. Thankfully it does look as though we have potentially reached the peak of the credit card interest rate cycle and hopefully we should see interest rates start to fall sooner rather than later.

Any reduction in minimum monthly payments will be appreciated by UK consumers who are struggling under a mountain of personal debt.