The issue of debt, and more specifically personal debt, has been a consistent focus here in Financial Regulation Matters , with the most recent post reporting on the fears that the personal debt crisis was set to deepen . Whilst we know that this crisis, and the ‘age of austerity’ go hand in hand, there are, of course, a number of competing elements that are fuelling the current debt crisis. In today’s post, the focus will be on the latest fears regarding the crisis, but also on calls by an influential Labour MP who is calling now for the credit card companies to come under increased scrutiny after successfully campaigning against payday lenders like Wonga. Rather than general debt figures being the focus this week in the media, the focus instead focuses upon credit card debt specifically. This is on the back of official figures that note that, over the last few months, the rate of credit card debt has risen to a 12-year high . The reported rise was over 8% for the last year , w...

In today’s post, the focus will be on the debt bubble that continues to grow by the day. We have looked at the personal debt bubble on a number of occasions here in Financial Regulation Matters , so in this post we will look at the recent comments made by the head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – Andrew Bailey – and assess whether his views are a. appropriate and b. sufficient enough to garner any sort of change. One of the issues that we see over and over again is that the focus of people’s attention is so narrow that only very limited changes can be affected, and ultimately it is then likely that the underlying causes of the issues will remain and effect society at some point in the future. We have discussed this issue of the debt bubble a number of times before in Financial Regulation Matters , ranging from analyses regarding those deemed to be ‘ financially excluded ’ which often leads to credit dependency, to the rapid increase of credit dependency in certain se...

Today’s post looks at the recent news that the value of finance deals for the purchasing of cars in the U.K. set a new monthly record in March, concluding at an increased rate of 13% over March 2016, totalling over £3.6 billion in March 2017 alone. We have discussed the issue of the automobile (car) finance bubble growing before here in Financial Regulation Matters , but the nature of the consistent growth means it is worth assessing the situation again because, ultimately, what looked like a relatively small ‘bubble’ is increasingly appearing to resemble much larger bubbles that have burst before, with catastrophic effects. Whilst the bursting of the car finance bubble may not grind the economy to a screeching halt, it will have a detrimental effect upon a global economy that is still recovering from the onslaught of 2007/08. So, in light of this, this post will assess some of the important aspects that are continuing to be prevalent, whilst also assessing the potential for the ...