I think for a lot of people, myself included, it is a choice to use credit as opposed to a necessity. And that also means we have a choice to shop around.
Don’t think that is the plan - it is those that can’t afford it who suffer the most - they won’t be shutting down credit that they already have. This is a theme that @Carlo1460 mentioned earlier.
For me, I have my Monzo Flex (19% APR), and i’ve also got a 0% card with a high street bank. I mainly use Flex because of it’s USP (the “Flex-ability” of paying more towards a single item when I have some spare cash). The “pay over 24 months” trial came at just the right time for me to buy new white goods for the house.
However, if I get hit with an APR increase, then I will be reducing my spend on Flex and sticking to pay in full or interest free over 3 months so Monzo will actually lose money from me.
My Barclaycard had been at 6.2% for maybe 15 years or more. When the rates started going up this time round it was the first time the new T&Cs kicked in whereby the rate follows the BoE rate, so now my rate is 11.something % I think.
My current Flex rate is 9%, if it starts rising it will once again be not competitive, but then again, I’ve never had another credit card that could ever compete with Barclaycard.
I won’t speculate on individual circumstances because the new rates are personalised.
But to reassure you, your current interest rate is one of the factors we consider when calculating your new rate, as we want to make sure the increases we’re making are reasonable – no one’s rate will go up by as much as 10% (i.e. from 19-29%).
For individual rates, you’ll naturally need to wait and see.
Credit companies always say this but in reality it’s not really personalised. People aren’t getting 18% or 21.5% or 23% or 28.65% depending on their individual circumstances.
It’s usually just blocked “risk” ie. The lowest risk on 19%, the middle chunk on 23% and the highest risk on 29%.
Unless Flex is different (in which case, good job) we could probably know the general “block” interest rates of most credit products.
Has something changed with flex recently? When i used to flex something it would look like income i.e. +£x in green. Now it looks like another deduction and it also sums into the total spend for the day?
Ah the above is my “activity feed” if I click on my card the I get what I expected…bit odd displaying it in 2 different ways and also adding it to a total in activity feed
Anyone had this before? Bought something off eBay on the 15th, 2 transactions for £2.19 and £2.29, both have been dispatched. Not sure why PayPal would then request it again, then it’s been returned? I paid in full all ready.
It’s gone back into my current account so I’ve paid it back again but still weird.
I have another issue, paid something off early on Friday but the main Flex feed says it’s still got £xxx left to pay, if I click on it it says “paid off!”.