Here is an overview of The Money Charity’s latest statistics for November 2023
Personal debt in the UK
People in the UK owed £1,845.6 billion at the end of September 2023.
The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £65,724 and per adult was £34,700, around 100.7% of average earnings.
Net mortgage lending decreased by £637 million in the month, while net consumer credit lending increased by £423 million.
Citizens Advice Bureaux across England and Wales answered 244,324 enquiries in October 2023, 19.4% up from October 2022.
Spending and Loans
Mortgages, Rent and Housing
Outstanding mortgage lending stood at £1,627.1 billion at the end of September 2023.
The average mortgage interest rate was 3.16% at the end of September 2023. Based on this, households with mortgages would pay an average of £4,748 in mortgage interest over the year.
HM Land Registry reports that the average house price for first-time buyers in Great Britain was £242,000 in September 2023, an annual decrease of 0.3% and a monthly change of -0.4%.
According to the Office for National Statistics, private rental prices in the UK rose by 6.1% in the 12 months to October 2023.
Spending and Loans
On average, 47.8 cash machine transactions (including balance enquiries and rejected transactions) were made every second in September 2023, a decrease of 6.1% on September 2022.
The number of ATMs (in-branch and remote) fell from 53,398 at the end of 2021 to 50,300at the end of 2022 (a fall of 5.8%).
In Q2 2023, households in the UK spent £117.13 million a day on water, electricity and gas, or £4.17 per household per day.
UK Finance figures show that 49.9% of credit card balances were bearing interest in July 2023.
Financial Inclusion
According to the FCA, in the UK in 2020 there were 1.1 million adults who did not have a bank account. This was 2.1% of the UK adult population.
According to the FCA Financial Lives Survey, in May 2022, 3.1 million people said they had paid for everything or most things using cash in the last 12 months.
According to Ofcom, 1.5 million households did not have access to the Internet in March 2021. This included 18% of households with members aged 65+.
Fair By Design has estimated that the cost of the poverty premium to a typical parliamentary constituency is £4.5 million a year. This equates to over £430per year for a low-income household.