Is there any information on consumer debt in general, either unsecured or secured?
A. Personal/household debt including unsecured credit and mortgages doubled from 1994 to 2001. The debt to income ratio was 90% a decade ago and stands at over 118% now. Consumer credit was around £140 billion in 2001 and is estimated to be in the region of £170 billion in 2003. The FSA estimate that consumer credit outstanding for the average household is over £98,000 for mortgage debt and over £24,000 in non-mortgage debt. The amount of debt passed to debt collection agents exceeds £5 billion per annum. The membership of the CSA deal with over 20 million cases per year. The potential size of the debt collection market is therefore huge. The growth of the DCA market in the last two years is estimated at almost 70%. Much of the growth in consumer credit and consumer indebtedness has been in the prime market (credit cards, personal loans) whereas lending to the sub-prime market (credit to lower income groups via home shopping, low value loans etc) has remained quite stable. In the UK, t
