The Halifax has announced a new credit card called the All in One card, with an introductory offer to both new and existing Halifax customers of 11 months interest free balance transfers and card transactions.
Customers can get the bonus if they get the credit card before 21 September and put at least GBP1,000 per month into their Halifax current account. When the zero percent offer is finished the card will have a typical interest rate of 15.9 percent with no additional fees to pay.
A spokesman for the Halifax felt that customers taking up the offer could find themselves savings several hundred pounds in interest savings and therefore expected the credit card to be very popular.
The Summer months are expected to be a busy time for those with credit cards according to Sainsburys Bank, with consumers expected to hit the cards hard to cover their spending.
Estimates put total consumer spending at around GBP7.9 billion for the Summer months, a little lower than last year but still a lot of money bearing in mind the difficult economic conditions. Of this total spend Sainsburys Bank predict approximately 42 percent will be put onto a credit card.
There are benefits to be enjoyed through paying by credit card of course, including cash back offers, points that can be redeemed to collect rewards and 0 percent interest too. The key is to clear the balance before it becomes costly and this is what Sainsburys Bank hope consumers will do.
There are many situations where people have to deal with unexpected situations that need to paid for, breakdowns in the home or car for example. However around 7.5 million people in the UK say they need their credit card to cover these problems say the Alliance and Leicester.
With a washing machine costing around GBP300 and a boiler over GBP1,000 such problems can become far larger when there are insufficient funds to cover the costs. Around 25 percent of those surveyed by the Alliance and Leicester said they could not manage anything over GBP100, while around half said GBP500 would be the most they could cover.
These people look to their credit card to cover such costs, though the recent credit problems are making this a little more difficult than before. Alliance and Leicester credit cards or alternatively a regular savings account can help cover these situations and get customers through a difficult situation.