National Debtline: Fewer balance transfer deals affects other personal finances

The drop in the availability of cheap interest-free balance transfers that have been popular in recent years could have a knock-on effect on other aspects of people’s personal finances, according to National Debtline.

Consumers are finding it increasingly difficult to find cheap balance transfer deals for their credit card debt, which is impacting the number of mortgage arrears as people stop paying their mortgage to counterbalance the problem.

In the past many borrowers would transfer their debt to another near-nought per cent deal, however such cheap, accessible credit is now harder to come by, although the organisation said that some reasonably good deals are still available for those with a clean credit rating.

Commenting on the future outlook for consumers, Beccy Boden-Wilks, a debt adviser and spokesperson for National Debtline, said: “Those cheap credit, nought per cent balance transfers are going to be very hard to come by, if not non-existent.”


Despite the current difficulty of managing large amounts of debt, around 716,600 people will try and transfer around £1.1 billion a month between credit cards this year, according to Sainsbury’s Finance.

Tags: consumers, Sainsbury's Finance, cent deal, Money Management, debt, accessible credit