The Financial Blog

It seems like I may have jumped the gun a bit when I said that the credit crunch hasn’t really affected the credit card industry so far…See my post about Capital One credit cards here

Moneyexpert.com say that the average standard APR has increased from 15.35 per cent in January this year to 16.1 per cent today.

This rise of 0.75 per cent is bad news for customers whose balance transfer deals are coming to an end. Moneyexpert.com say that there are 180 of the 0 per cent introductory balance transfer credit cards to choose from and the average introductory offer period is nearly 10 months.

Moneyexpert.com are warning people to thoroughly check the terms and conditions of their credit card provider because they are looking to increase charges on any balance left on the credit card when the 0 per cent offer ends.

Although the average standard rate is 16.1 per cent you might want to check if you’re unfortunate enough to have one of the 23 credit cards that charge 18.9 per cent or more.

Director of MoneyExpert.com, Sean Gardner, said: “Credit card companies continue to offer good, lengthy zero per cent deals on balance transfers, and customers should continue to take advantage of them.”

“However part of the consideration process should be the go-to rate, particularly as more and more people will not be in a position to clear their balance in full once their deal expires. As money is tight, paying off the credit card is more difficult and that means you’ll have to rely on the standard APR of your credit card provider, or of course switch again.”

I posted about this last week, see; http://www.thefinancialblog.co.uk/capital-one-credit-card-offering-15-months-at-0-per-cent/

Capital One are offering a 0 per cent on balance transfers for the best part of 15 months, so no need to worry about the standard APR for well over a year! The good thing with Capital One is that the standard APR or go to rate is just 12.9 per cent Typical APR. There is of course a 3 per cent balance transfer handling fee to take into consideration.

>>Click here to apply online for the Capital One credit card

>>Click here to compare credit cards and find the best deal to suit your needs…

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Credit Cards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.