News
20th April 09
4/20/2009
Ulster Unionist Assembly member for Fermanagh & South Tyrone, Tom Elliott MLA has called on credit card providers to act immediately and slash current exorbitant interest rates.
Ulster Unionist Assembly member for Fermanagh & South Tyrone, Tom Elliott MLA has called on credit card providers to act immediately and slash current exorbitant interest rates. At the present time, despite recent sharp reductions in the Bank of England base rates (5.25%-0.5%) that Credit card interest rates have reached their highest level for two years (increase of 1.1% during the past 2 years) and typical APR of between 15.9%-16.9%.
Tom said: “In these harsh economic times with high unemployment, pay freezes and rising food prices and for many on a tight budget, increasing numbers of the public find that the only way they can make ends meet, is to use a credit card. This is a scandalous act by credit card providers of profit manipulation and imposing further rate rises on their unsuspecting credit card holders without any possible justification.
It is now even more important for consumers to act responsibly if they are using credit cards and only borrow what you can afford to repay and endeavour to repay their balances each month. The public should make enquiries of their credit card issuer as to the interest rate that they will be charged. Let us also remember when making bookings for flights or holidays if you pay by credit card, a further 2.5 % is often added to your bill.
I believe that all financial institutions that have been bailed out over the past year should be passing on the Bank of England interest rates reductions to customers in full rather than imposing further increases to credit card holders. Every card holder experiencing these card rate increases should write to their card issuing Bank and complain about the unjustified increase. If not a favourable response, then write to the Banking Ombudsman and if enough people complain, something must be done. These reductions must be passed on to the customer.”
Back to other news articles...
