While many have said that the credit card market has been affected by the credit crunch there is now a conflicting statement as to the credit card options you might have. In the past few months many of the analysts in the credit card industry were saying the credit card companies might take away the credit card offers with zero percent interest. Now it seems that the reality has finally been seen.
Many Irish credit card companies are not taking away the zero percent offers. Instead they are changing the offers a little bit and putting them right back up. There are at least 40 different cards offering balance transfer and purchase rate introductory offers that will last at least 12 months.
Some of the lenders are even adding months to the deals. It depends on where you are living, but in the UK a lot of the deals are 17 months long now. Part of the reason for these changes is the credit crunch. The financial sectors are suffering because individuals are not able to make payments on the cards. With lowering the interest rate to a deal they are hoping to entice new consumers to open accounts for these deals in which they can at least make some of the money they are losing back.
This news comes at a great time for many in Ireland. Several families are suffering from credit card debt as a result of the credit crunch and changes to daily costs. They already have a high credit debt which is being made worse by the 16.9 percent or higher average on the interest rates.
These great deals are not without some consequences though. In fact many of the credit card issuers are showing more restrictions regarding their introductory deals. Such things as you can’t miss a payment, make a late payment, or you can’t transfer balances from certain cards may cause a little hiccup in the design. Other changes that are occurring with the new deals are the limit you can get on the card. The limits are lower on most of the cards which means you can only transfer a small percentage of the balance that is earning the high interest. This either means you open up more cards or you stick out the debt.
Since there is restriction on how much debt you can have open in revolving credit that affects the number of new cards you can get at one time. The credit card industry is still the battle for the best consumer. It is all about offering products to those who can afford to make payments otherwise you get the high expensive deals that make it almost impossible to pay off.
Still research is showing many residents of Ireland are continuing to open new card accounts and that a significant number of teenagers will also take out credit card applications as soon as they are old enough. It is hard to fight the industry when we all keep taking out expensive credit.
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