Britain 'addicted' to its 67m credit cards

Mike Tait|Metro13 April 2012

Britons are addicted to credit cards, a new report says.

With nearly 67million of the cards in circulation, we hold more than the whole of the rest of Western Europe.

If debit and charge cards are included, the total soars to 134million - which equates to two payment cards for every man, woman and child.

The level of use is double the European average and Britain is the only European country with more credit cards than people, market analyst Datamonitor found.

We are second only to the US in paying by plastic, said report author Kieran Hines.

British shoppers have grown 'extremely comfortable' about using credit cards in recent years.

'The UK is undoubtedly the most developed card market in Europe. This is shown in the high and growing numbers of plastic cards in the market relative to its European neighbours,' he added.

At the end of 2003, Western Europe had 542million payment cards.

Britain's 66.8million credit cards account for more than 55 per cent of 121million in use across Western Europe. And by 2008, the country will have almost 93million, a jump of nearly 40 per cent on 2003.

The total transaction value will also soar by 42.4 per cent to ?154billion, predicted Datamonitor.

'UK consumers are comfortable with the idea of card-based credit, but consumers in Europe are not,' said Mr Hines.

'This is not to say consumers in Britain borrow more heavily or are more indebted than their European counterparts but they prefer to borrow in a different way.'

Liberal Democrat spokesman Dr Vince Cable said the number of credit cards in Britain showed banks were 'recklessly fuelling the boom in borrowing'.

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