Britons have £52bn personal loan debt

Britons owe high street banks a total of £52bn in personal loans, new figures have shown.

The British Bankers' Association (BBA) revealed that the total amount of new loans taken out in February was £1.3bn - £100m higher than the previous month.

The BBA noted that the increase was likely to have arisen from Britons borrowing money to pay for new cars, in an attempt to take advantage of the extension of the car scrappage scheme.

Vance Parsons of debt solution provider, Atlantic, says that "Credit card debt remains a serious problem with total balances exceeding £33 billion, though there is evidence that overall consumers are trying to pay off credit card debts rather than borrow more.

This is reflected in the new stats which reveal that debt caused by overdrafts had gone down last month by £200m.

The net figure now stands at £9.3bn.

However Vance Parsons explains that "The statistics don't show the real divide, where people with unmanageable debt problems feel that they have to use their credit cards to make ends meet.

If you are only servicing interest and are unable to increase payments then a non-borrowing debt solution may be applicable."

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