March 2017: Money Statistics

Here is an overview of The Money Charity’s latest statistics for March 2017:

Personal debt in the UK

• The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £56,310 in January. The revised figure for December was £56,148.
• Based on January 2017 trends, the UK’s total interest repayments on personal debt over a 12 month period would have been £50.225 billion.
• Total credit card debt in January 2017 was £66.7bn. Per household this is £2,470 – for a credit card bearing the average interest, it would take 25 years and 10 months to repay if you made only the minimum repayment each month
• In the 12 months ending Q4 2016, 1 in 2210 adults (just under 0.19% of the adult population) became insolvent.

Spending and Loans

• During December 2016 an average of 486 purchases were made in the UK every second using debit and credit cards, based on figures from the UK Cards Association
• In February 2017 the average price of unleaded petrol rose by 0.6 ppl (pence per litre) to 120.1ppl. This meant it cost £60.05 to fill a 50 litre unleaded tank
• British Bankers Association figures show that 56.1% of credit card balances were bearing interest in January 2017
• The average APR for a £5,000 personal loan is 9.48%, according to the Bank of England. For a £10,000 loan it’s 3.68%, while the average rate for an overdraft is 19.71%.

Mortgages, rent and housing

• Outstanding mortgage lending stood at £1.326 trillion at the end of January. This is up from £1.291 trillion a year earlier
• According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, gross mortgage lending in January totalled an estimated £18.9 billion
• The Financial Conduct Authority reports that 69.75% of mortgage lending in Q3 2016 was for 75% or less of a property’s value
• There were 29,743 loans approved for house purchase in January, according to the British Bankers Association (BBA), almost unchanged from a year earlier. The average loan approved for house purchase rose to £182,500.

A full report of the statistics can be found here.