Low-use customers of Barclaycard are facing the possibility of having to pay for the privilege of not using their card enough. Barclaycard has 9.8 million customers and around one million of these simply never use their credit cards. People get new cards and do not bother to close their old accounts, leaving regular users to subsidise the costs to the company of maintaining the inactive accoun...

Adult consumers in the UK possess an average unsecured debt of £8,800 and have collectively run up a credit card debt of almost £5.5 billion, according to new figures from financial charity CreditAction. The charity, which aims to educate consumers on the dangers of credit, reports that three quarters of all credit cardholders regularly fail to clear their account and subsequently face...

The fate of fee-free credit cards looks increasingly grim, as Morgan Stanley becomes the latest in a growing line of card providers to introduce annual fees for its customers. The firm announced last week that it would be implementing a new £20 annual fee for a "selection" of its Black card customers from June 1st. A spokeswoman said: "We have reviewed the spending patterns and r...

A new contactless credit and debit card technology was unveiled by the banking industry this week which will allow consumers to pay for transactions of £10 or less with no more than a wave of their card. The new system requires that card holders hold their card up to an appropriate card reading terminal so it can scan the card and process the payment. There is no need for the customer ...

Physical credit card fraud has fallen by nearly 70 per cent since the chip and PIN standard was introduced in the UK 24 months ago, but fraudsters continue to find new ways to steal money. Payment industry specialists Apacs reported at the 2007 Retail Fraud conference in London that chip and PIN had helped reduce face-to-face fraud from £220 million to £70 million. The 133 mill...