Credit cards being paid off at fast rate

2 March 2010

Australian credit cards holders are paying off their credit cards at a faster rate from the festive season than previous years according to figures released by MasterCard.

According to the figures Australians clocked up $21 billion on credit cards over the festive season with this debt already paid off down to an impressive 70.8 per cent, with this amount accruing interest still. MasterCard stated that this figure is the lowest it has been in over twelve months, based on the data provided by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Other results show that the number of cash advances has also declined significantly with a drop of 13 per cent compared to usage rates twelve months ago. This trend is also reflected in a decline in the size of Australian's credit cards limits which have also shrunk in size by 3.5 per cent over 2009 which follows on from the previous significant decline of 12 per cent from 2008.

These figures were released after previous data showed that the average Australian credit card debt sits at approximately $3,200, with approximately $1000 of this charged over the 2009-2010 festive and holiday season.

In fact a national study commissioned by Aussie found that while we may have spent more we did intend to pay off quicker, which the above results support, with the Aussie survey stating that almost 80 per cent of survey respondents believed that they would have paid off the entirety of their credit card debt within the first three months of 2010.

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