| Updated:
Consumers hoard 38m credit cards
Consumers are holding on to 38m unused credit cards, with a total credit limit of £200bn, in a desperate bid to cling to a financial safety net, according to a report published yesterday by uSwitch.com.
With unemployment at 2.38m and over 3m credit card rejections over the past 12 months, consumers are increasingly “loathe to close these accounts and let the lifelines go”.
The research showed that over 16m consumers have two cards they do not use, while nearly one in ten said that they have as many as four. Only 1.8m had cut their cards up.
But uSwitch warned that the practice could have a negative impact on consumers’ credit scores, which take the amount of credit available to an individual into consideration.