The latest official figures show a rather unexpected fall in the number of people in England and Wales becoming insolvent. A shade under 27,000 people went into insolvency during April to June this year, and although the figure represents a 4.2% rise on the total for the same period last year, it is a drop off of 8.1% on the figure for the first quarter.

Both types of insolvency - bankruptcy and IVA - fell in numbers, but it was IVAs or Individual Voluntary Arrangements which showed the greater reduction of 15% from the first to the second quarter, leading to speculation that IVAs are not being accepted as readily by lenders worried about the growing amount of bad debt they’re exposed too.

In recent years, IVAs have been seen by many as an easier alternative to bankruptcy - time will tell whether the fall in IVA numbers will translate into more bankruptcies a few months down the line.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Insolvency. 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.