Mark Bowerman, a spokesperson for the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS), believes the credit card industry is doing nothing wrong

They are a number of good reasons for using a credit card. Credit cards are probably the best means of getting a short term interest free loan. They are easy to use and very convenient.

One of the big things they have going for them is that if you are an innocent victim of credit card fraud your money will be refunded by your bank, whereas if you carry cash and your wallet is stolen there is little hope of you ever seeing that money again.

Under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act if you pay for goods or services between the values of #100 and #30,000 on a credit card and you don?t receive them because, for example, the company goes bust, there is protection. Your issuer becomes jointly liable for the transaction and will repay you.

Information about debts is shared as much as we are able but certain barriers remain ? such as whether or not someone has a student loan. But it is not in the issuer?s interests to loan money to anyone who cannot afford to pay it back. Credit card companies are going to do as much as possible to make sure that the people they are lending money to are honest, trustworthy and not already over-indebted.

Certainly there does need to be responsible lending, and the industry likes to think it is a responsible lender. But there also needs to be responsible borrowing on the part of card holders. They shouldn?t spend money they can?t afford to repay ? but if, like the vast majority of people, they use their credit cards as a short term, interest free loan only, then a credit card is a good thing.

We recommend on your credit card statement that you don?t just continually make the minimum repayment each month because it?s going to take longer to repay your debt and will cost more in the long run. So we are very transparent as an industry about what costs and charges there are ? and there is no excuse for people not knowing what they are getting themselves into.

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