The Bank of England has warned that credit cards will become harder to obtain with lenders further tightening their lending criteria. The Banks latest Credit Conditions Survey revealed that during the last financial quarter, lenders not only reduced their credit card limits, but also imposed tighter credit scoring criteria. Nearly 31 million Brits have a credit card, according to figures from the UK Payments Association, meaning the latest tightening of the availability of credit could pose financial problems to millions of Brits.
With large numbers of Brits reliant on their credit cards to tie them over to the next payday , and loans only really available to those with good credit records, it is feared that lenders may turn to unregulated credit forms to try to solve their financial problems.
On a more positive note, however, the survey did indicate that lenders had raised the level of secured credit available to homeowners for the first time since the survey was published in the third quarter of 2007. However, experts have cast doubt over these claims, and insist there are few signs of any increased availability of secured credit.






