Credit card spending rose by 7.3% and personal borrowing through loans jumped by 14.0% in December, trade body UK finance has revealed in its latest Household Finance Update.

Figures from the trade association of the UK banking and finance industry have revealed that the credit card spending of £11.8 billion in December 2019 was 7.3% higher than in December 2018.

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However, repayments continue to offset spending. The result is that the level of borrowing on cards is currently growing at only 2.4% annually.  This is a continuation of the general slowdown from the recent high of 6.6% in October 2016.

Personal borrowing through loans was also on an upward trend. In December 2019 it was 14.0 per cent higher than in December 2018. The higher increase reflects the exceptionally weak demand a year earlier.

Overdraft borrowing has been declining over recent years, such that December’s level was 0.8 per cent lower than at the same time a year earlier.

Mortgage lending

Gross mortgage lending across the residential market in December 2019 was £22.2 billion. This brought the annual total for 2019 to £265.8 billion, 1.1 per cent lower than in 2018.

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The last two years have broadly reflected the continuation of a stronger long term lending trend over recent years.

An annual total of 982,286 mortgages were approved by the main high street banks during 2019, 7.4 per cent more than in 2018.

The full year number of mortgages approved for home purchases were 8.0 per cent higher, remortgage approvals were 7.9 per cent higher and approvals for other secured borrowing were 3.0 per cent higher than in 2018.

As for personal deposits, they grew by 2.5 per cent in the year to December 2019. Three-quarters of deposits were held in immediate access accounts in December 2019, in line with the same period last year.