Credit card applicants not asked for proof of income, research shows

Wed, 18 Jun 2008

The vast majority of successful credit card applicants did not have to provide proof of income before being accepted, new research shows.

According to uSwitch.com, 84 per cent of successful credit card applicants in the last year (4.8 million people), were not asked to back up the information they provided to the issuer.

It also found that the average limit on a credit card is £3,545, 20 per cent of the average net salary of £18,083.

However, the firm predicts that as lenders tighten their belt, 6.6 million credit card applications will be rejected in the next 12 months.

Simon Linstead, head of personal finance at uSwitch.com, said: " Credit card companies have had a rough ride with bad debt so they have tightened their lending criteria and lenders have reduced the amount of credit on offer to applicants - credit is undoubtedly harder to come by but there are still good deals out there."

Yesterday, Ed Bowsher, savings expert at Fool.co.uk, warned that some store credit cards are now more expensive, despite a ruling by the Competition Commission.
add to favouritesnewsletterlink to this pagesend to friendpost comments

Link to this page

Copy and Paste the following HTML into your page.