Several surveys have reported recently on spending trends for the festive season and none of them seem likely to put a smile on issuer’s faces. Unsurprisingly significantly fewer people will be using a credit card to pay for Christmas this year, according to new research by Legal & General. The survey revealed that around 1.6 million families could find Christmas unaffordable. Around a third of households paid for Christmas with credit cards last year, but this number is expected to drop to a fifth this year. With increasing pressure on household incomes coming for all directions, a third of households are planning to spend less on gifts this year. 67% said they had enough money put aside for Christmas, while in the
Credit card holders in the
Despite stores offering tempting cut-price deals, shoppers are in a cautious mood in the run up to Christmas according the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), and while consumers spent a total of £7.2 billion on plastic, they repaid £7.4 billion. This continued a trend from September which also saw a higher level of repayments than new spending, with £6.9 billion being spent on cards and £7.2 billion being paid back.
Maybe the increase in spending via mobile devices will alleviate some of this but along with the prospects for the general economy the future for credit cards continues to look less than bright.
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"The expertise provided by Savantor has greatly helped us evaluate our risk position and to take the right steps in managing our future risks. Strong, disciplined planning and an ongoing willingness to work closely with our staff played an enormous part in making this a very successful well-delivered project which will greatly help us in achieving our business goals."
Mark Healy, Chief Risk Officer - NEOVIA Financial - UK
"We needed a programme manager for a complex transformation who also brought a broad understanding to help stakeholders through the change. We have been delighted with the delivery and outcomes from this engagement with Savantor."
Michael Liquornik, Executive Vice President - Neovia Financial - UK
"Savantor helped ACI build a payments onboarding workshop for new technical staff in ACI EMEA. Their extensive experience took our outline and built a great starting presentation of industry facts that we have now customised further into a half day session that is used for all new joiners. Our Americas and APAC regions have also taken the material and customised it for their regions. A great job by Savantor has meant new joiners to ACI hit the ground running."
Richard Sanders, Principal Solution Consultant - ACI - Worldwide EMEA
"OP-Pohjola Group has used Savantors help in numerous different specialist projects differing from risk assessment to management tool creation to transaction analysis. We have been very satisfied by the quality of the service provided by Savantor's experts."
Kai Lindstrom, Head of Acquiring - OP-Services Ltd - Finland
"This was a major business transformation that required us to build an excellent team made up of internal bank specialists, supported by external card business, technical and operations expertise. Savantor provided specialists from the local market and with international experience to fill a variety of important roles. The Savantor resourcing team are professional, reliable and good people to work with."
Ricardo Gomez, Director - Operations & Technology - WiZink Bank - Spain
"It was a strategic imperative for the bank to be EMV compliant for our payment cards and the experience that Savantor brought to the company has proved to be invaluable."
Eddie Sweeney, Chief Technology Officer - AIB Bank - Ireland
"I was impressed by the speed with which the Savantor team were able to start delivering and as a team they have made a significant contribution to the success of the Programme."
Bjorn Niels, Programme Director - ABN AMRO Bank - The Netherland
"Savantor successfully advised Rabobank during preparing of the platform migration for cards. Savantor demonstrated thorough knowledge of business processes and market players combined with a practical approach."
Evert Fekkes, Business Information Manager - Rabobank - Nederland
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