Debt Statistics

• Britain 's personal debt is increasing by £1million every four minutes. (Credit Action)
• At the end of February 2007, total UK personal debt was £1,310bn. The growth rate increased to 10.5% for the previous 12 months which equates to an increase of £116bn. (Credit Action) 
• Total consumer credit lending to individuals in February 2007 was £213bn. This has increased 5.5% in the last 12 months. (Credit Action)
• At the end of 2005/ 06 general government debt was £529.1 billion, equivalent to 42.1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). (National Statistics Online)
• Plastic cards in issue were 183m in 2005. This works out at an average of 4 plastic cards for every adult in the UK . (Credit Action)
• There were 282 credit or store card transactions that took place every second in the UK in 2005. There were 86 withdrawals made every second (equal to £5,455/second) from the UK 's 58,000 cash machines in 2005. (Credit Action)
• The net repayment of credit card debt, of £311m, was revealed in statistics from the Bank of England (BoE). (BBC)
• Since the start of 2000 the amount of outstanding debt held by people in the UK has doubled to £1.25 trillion, though most of that has been in the form of mortgage borrowing. (BBC)