Gordon Brown vows credit card clampdown

October 26, 2009 4:29 pm by Lucy Warwick-Ching

Gordon Brown wants to stop companies increasing interest rates on existing debts without telling card holders, issuing unsolicited credit card cheques and relaxing credit limits without being asked.

Speaking in a podcast, released on the 10 Downing Street website and YouTube at the weekend, he said: ‘We are announcing measures to make the credit and store card companies clean up their act to get you a fairer deal.’

Listen to the PM’s podcast here.

 

The recording comes ahead of Tuesday’s publication (by the consumer affairs minister Kevin Brennan) of the results of a review into credit and store card practices that it has been conducting over the summer. The review will include a proposal forcing an increase to the level of minimum monthly repayments card issuers ask for each month.

Watch out for Matthew Vincent’s story on this subject and what it could mean for you in tomorrow’s FT and on the personal finance website.

Related links:

Unsolicited credit card cheques to be outlawed in white paper plans, FT, July 2, 2009

Posted in Banking, Credit cards, Current accounts, loans, Savings |
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Lucy Warwick-Ching is the FT’s new Money Online Editor and has been a UK Companies reporter covering tobacco, pubs and leisure companies as well as the deputy editor on House and Home.

Matthew Vincent is the FT’s Personal Finance Editor and was previously the editor of Investors Chronicle, where he also devised the award-winning online video The Market Programme, and produced the BBC-FT standalone magazine ‘How to be Better Off’. He presents the weekly FT Money Show audio podcast, and previously worked on the BBC TV programmes Short Change and Pound for Pound.

Alice Ross is deputy personal finance editor of FT Money. She specialises in pensions, investments and investment trusts. Alice joined FT Money in April 2008 - prior to that she was deputy editor at Money Management magazine.

Ellen Kelleher has been a personal finance reporter in the UK for close to four years. Before arriving in London, she worked in the FT's New York bureau where she covered the insurance sector.

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Josephine Cumbo has written about all aspects of personal finance but currently specialises in insurance. She also covered company news for FT.com. Prior to working at the FT she was a news reporter for the ABC.

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Jonathan Eley is editor of Investors Chronicle, and has been with the title for ten years. Before that he worked for newswires and trade journals in London, New York and Hong Kong.

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