Outstanding balances on credit card accounts have grown annually by 9.8%, new figures published by UK Finance have shown.

The banking trade body’s latest data covered the 12 months to November 2023.

In the same period, just under half (49.5%) of outstanding balances incurred interest, slightly down from 50.9% in November 2022.

UK Finance estimates that its data on card spending covers over 97% of the total credit card market. Active accounts are defined as those that are left with outstanding balances at the end of the calendar month.

According to the latest figures, UK Finance revealed that there were a total 379.3 million credit card transactions in November made by UK cardholders both in the UK and abroad, an increase of 6.4% compared to the same month a year earlier. The total spend on these cards of £20.9bn represented a 6.2% year-on-year increase.

The banking body’s data also stated that on UK debit card accounts, November saw 2.21 billion transactions, a 2.6% jump compared to November last year. However, the total spend on these cards, worth £66.3bn, was a 1.3% decline from the same month last year.

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