Money Statistics: September 2023

Here is an overview of The Money Charity’s latest statistics for September 2023

Personal debt in the UK

• People in the UK owed £1,843.8 billion at the end of July 2023.
• The average total debt per household, including mortgages, was £65,661 and per adult was £34,666, around 100.3% of average earnings.
• Net mortgage lending increased by £449 million in the month, while net consumer credit lending increased by £409 million.
• Citizens Advice Bureaux across England and Wales answered 440,695 enquiries in July 2023, 16.7% up from July 2022.

Spending and Loans

• On average, 47.8 cash machine transactions (including balance enquiries and rejected transactions) were made every second in August 2023, a decrease of 6.6% on August 2022.
• The number of ATMs (in-branch and remote) fell from 53,398 at the end of 2021 to 50,300 at the end of 2022 (a fall of 5.8%).
• In Q1 2023, households in the UK spent £115.98 million a day on water, electricity and gas, or £4.13 per household per day.
• UK Finance figures show that 49.8% of credit card balances were bearing interest in June 2023.

Mortgages, Rent and Housing

• Outstanding mortgage lending stood at £1,627.8 billion at the end of July 2023.
• The average mortgage interest rate was 2.98% at the end of July 2023. Based on this, households with mortgages would pay an average of £4,459 in mortgage interest over the year.
• HM Land Registry reports that the average house price for first-time buyers in Great Britain was £240,789 in July 2023, an annual increase of 0.2% and a monthly change of 0.4%.
• According to the Office for National Statistics, private rental prices in the UK rose by 5.5% in the 12 months to August 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 £430 per year for a low-income household.

The full report can be found here.