Just under one-quarter of UK adults use store credit cards to fund their Christmas shopping, according to new research.
Some of these store credit cards feature rates of interest at around 30 per cent, meaning that Britons could be an extra £1,500 out of pocket if using store-provided credit cards rather than personal loans, a study by Alliance & Leicester has revealed.
More than half of the consumers opting for store credit cards claimed to be using them because they were offered during the sale.
Richard Al-Dabbagh, senior personal loans manager at Alliance & Leicester, commented: "Christmas costs can really add up and some of the offers pushed at us by sales assistants in connection with their store cards can seem really tempting."
However, he added that the costs of these credit cards could last with the consumer for a long time, as expensive rates of interest mount.
The Motley Fool recently advised UK consumers that they could save money by switching the store card balances to 0% credit cards.
News Side
A quarter of Brits using store credit cards, study shows
Thu, 21 Dec 2006
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