The clutch of the current credit crisis seems to be ever tightening, its grip making life increasingly difficult for all concerned. Add this to the ever rising cost of living here in the UK and doom seems to be spelled out for the average UK consumer. Despite The Bank of England trimming interest rates 3 times since December 2007 “interest charges on outstanding credit card balances remain disgustingly high” commented David Kuo head of personal finance. How does this actually impact on the consumers with credit cards? First of all it means that a massive £7.7 billion is being shelled out to simply cover the costs of annual interest payments, on an individual basis that works out at £250 a year per year for every card holder.

This is not a good state of affairs for consumers, as a whole it means an obscene £64 billion is the value of the current outstanding credit card debt, as if that weren’t enough over three quarters of that value is still incurring interest. Kuo continues to comment on the sad state of affairs by highlighting that the “typical annual percentage rate on popular credit cards is around 16 per cent”, which for most consumers sounds like a pretty good deal, not so good when you realise that this amount “is over three times higher that the Bank of England base rate”!

All is not lost, Kuo reminds customers that they can talk to their credit card provider if they feel their rate is too high, as “APRs are not set in stone, and are open to negotiations” customers do well to barter with their providers over their rates with the hope of coming to a more agreeable rate, one that will not cripple the customer financially. In addition if you are looking to possibly move your custom to another provider who is offering better perks and benefits you can contact your current provider to see if they can match or come close to any offers you have in mind, as a valued customer, your credit card provider will want to hold on to your custom and thus may make offers not advertised.

You may think negotiating with your provider over your APR may be futile, especially if they are only offering a drop of 1%, the reality is a 1% APR reduction represents a whopping £74 million going back into the pockets of consumers.

Keeping such things in mind is important for consumers as rather than simply accepting that what the lending institutions offer as the ‘be all and all’ we can demand a change, after all a single per cent reduction amounts to a massive £74 million saving for the consumer which is a mere fraction of the £50 billion lenders are grabbing at from the Central Bank as a bailout for their own budget blunders. Why is it acceptable for the banks to have their cake and eat it despite the credit crisis and not for the individual consumer who after all keeps the whole system moving?

Consumers are in a position to make demands too, their voices as a collective can produce a deafening roar, one that will force the various institutions to sit up and pay attention, not only to their profit margins but the people off whose backs they make their six figure bonuses!