Credit Card Blog

Barclaycard has announced that it has reached its target of getting a million contactless credit cards out before the end of 2008. This innovative technology means that you can make small purchases (the typical things such as coffee, newspapers, snacks, potential tickets etc) without the hassle of putting your card into a card reader and [...]

This is something I’ve asked myself a few times… who actually owns all the credit cards that there are out there on the market? Are the cards all competing with each other? This would suggest that there is some fierce competition out there, and each card is trying to outdo each other. My economics brain [...]

Should all credit card companies know all about you? If you haven’t got a credit card with for example, Barclays, is it right that they (Barclays) can access all the information there is out there on you?
I think this is a potential violation of privacy - but this is actually about to happen. Starting in [...]

Now, more than ever, it’s hugely important to manage your finances wisely. Credit card deals and offers are getting harder to get - with banks tightening their lending criteria, and having a decent credit rating is fast becoming one of the most talked about aspects of credit card lending.
But how lenders are determining, and indeed [...]

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this, but a life assistance company (CPP) has carried out some research which suggests that up to as many as 20% of 8 to 16 year olds are using their parents credit cards to make purchases online without their parents (the cardholders!), knowing about it.
Apparently £191 million [...]

I like the rhymne of the title.. Bloomberg has reported that Gordon Brown has been trying to persuade banks and credit card lenders to cut their interest rates and cut the cost of borrowing. This seems to be in direct response to the Defaqto Media report that shows that of 240 credit cards studied, the [...]

Although the Bank of England base rate has been reduced by nearly half - from 5% to 3% over the last few months, to try and combat the worsening economic situation, credit card interest rates have actually gone up. It’s been reported that the average credit card interest rate has risen from 17.2% to 17.6% [...]

There’s some research just out (from Savebuckets website), that suggests that the average Christmas budget has gone down by £102 this year, with people here in the UK expected to spend around £604 each on Christmas related items.
To some this might seem an incredible amount of money, to others this may not seem like [...]

I’m going to get a bit technical here - and talk a bit about a show that was held this week.. at the Cartes & IDentification show in fact, near Paris. 
Visa have been working on the security of credit cards and potentially debit cards, and they have come up with a card, which although not [...]

It’s official - a study by Abbey has showed that the amount of disposable income people have, has fallen. This has repercussions for how people live, but also how many people take on credit cards. The danger is of course that with less income, instead of limiting their spending, people end up being driven to [...]