Credit Cards

A credit card is an electronic, plastic card which gives you the option to buy goods and services but pay for them at a later date, thus offering you a flexible way to manage your expenditure. When you buy something using a credit card, the credit card provider pays for your purchase.

At the end of the month you are sent a statement detailing the transactions on your account; you can choose to pay off the total outstanding balance immediately, or pay off the balance in installments over an extended period of time. If you do not pay off the total balance immediately, you will be charged interest on the remaining balance until it has been paid.

Credit cards are a very popular method of payment in the UK. There are more than sixty million credit cards in circulation in the UK at the moment, and billions of pounds are spent on these each month*.


For further details see:

• Introduction
• Operation of a Credit Card
• Types of Credit Card
• Interest Rates
• Credit Card Charges
• Fraud Protection
• Terms & Conditions
• Managing Debt

 * Based on data from www.bba.org.uk .