KPMG, one of the biggest accounting firms, is warning that more than 10 million people may default on credit repayments before the end of 2008.

Millions of people may have to come to terms that their take-home pay is not enough to service repayments on mortgages, personal loans and credit cards

According to the firm 6.6 million people, or 22% of those with debts, are already struggling to make all their repayments, with 10.6 million (35%) believing they will encounter difficulties with debt payments within the next twelve months.

The figures are provided from a survey by YouGov, commissioned by the ITV programme ‘Reposession Reposession Reposession’.  The average household now owes a total of £51,730, bringing to total UK personal debt to £1.345 trillion. This is an increase of 300% over the last decade.

The programme predicts the end of shifting credit between lenders as lending criteria tighten, and new credit cards become harder to obtain.

Last month Egg announce its intention to close the credit cards accounts of 160,000 of its customers, while Barclaycard has lowered the credit limits for half a million of its customers. Other banks are expected to follow suit in cutting back on lending.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 10:27 am and is filed under General Debt News. 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.