Debt is all a question of balance

CREDIT cards can be a blessing and a curse.

- by Katie Elliott

They're great for building your credit score and grabbing extra protection for online purchases. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act covers you when spending between £100 and £30,000 if things go wrong. But the curse? People can end up sinking into expensive high interest debt that keeps growing month after month. If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. In September, credit card borrowing in the UK reached £700million, according to the Bank of England.What's worse is, according to Experian, 83% of UK borrowers (around 34 million people) are carrying revolving credit that isn't "optimised", which means they could be paying more interest than they need to.