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"Barclays cuts rates for some credit card customers"

By admin | March 7th, 2009 | Credit Cards

With the base interest rate now at an all time low, standing at just 1 percent, which is the lowest in the history of the Bank of England, credit card firms have been under pressure to cut the rates charges on their cards.

One major credit card provider, Barclaycard, has recently announced that it is cutting the on credit cards for some of its lower risk customers. The credit card giant has been under pressure from authorities to do more to help struggling consumers in the current financial climate.

The report suggests that around three million of the lowest risk Barclaycard customers could see the interest rates on their credit cards fall between 2.5 and 5 percent. However, despite this move from Barclaycard, some industry officials are angry that the card provider, along with other credit card giants, have taken far too long to react to the series of interest rate cuts over the past five months, leaving their customers struggling for far longer than they should have been.

With the base interest rate now down to just 1 percent the average rate of interest charged on a credit card is now around ten times the level of the base interest rate. Barclaycard has said that although three million customers are likely to benefit from the rate cuts, another nine million or so will not benefit, because the current financial climate has increased their risk of defaulting on repayments, thus turning them into high risk borrowers.

Over recent months credit card firms have been targeted by the government and following a series of meeting have agreed to a set of new measures to help ease problems for struggling borrowers, such as allowing them more breathing space before calling in debt collectors, and ensuring that adequate written notice is given of changes in their interest rates.

Tags: credit card rate cut, barclaycard, barclays, interest rates

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Post A Comment:

  1. Dropping rates they always get you somehow just best not to take debt on your card, period. Avoid paying those corporate credit cards companies read this http://www.creditcardknowhow.info/avoid-disastrous-payments-of-credit-cards/ and stop paying.

    Comment by jack torchish — March 8, 2009 @ 6:19 pm

  2. The current economy is a mess everybody knows it. What is amazing is how some people continue their daily life as if nothing changed and one such behavior is their attitude to credit cards. The first step Americans need to do is get rid of their credit card debt as it is the best symbol for how Americans lived above their means for so many years getting all of us to this big economy mess. First step is education. Start with understanding and then please stop loading your cards with too many charges.

    Comment by Hollie Spence — March 12, 2009 @ 10:43 am


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