商业报道:英国巨额信用卡债务（在线收听）

British credit crunch

ITN's Ben King reports on the huge credit card debt growing in Britain.

Louise Box from Manchester transferred her 1,800-pound debts to a nought per cent interest card with Virgin. Then she bought a 300-pound suit on the new card. She knew she'd be charged interest on that purchase. But then she discovered that she won't be able to clear the interest bearing debt until she's paid off all the interest-free bit which might take a whole year. Result: a rather more expensive suit than she bargained for.

I suppose I was a little naive to think that banks wouldn't be acting about the interest, and they would be acting ethically. But I'm just very disappointed that I rang Virgin and their response was there's nothing we can do. This is the way that we operate.

Not for long though. The government is proposing to ban companies for making customers pay their low interest debts off first. It's also proposing no increases on credit card limits without prior consent; no raising interest rates for existing credit card debts; and higher minimum payments to accelerate the full repayment of debt.

What we find out by talking to consumers is that these are the sorts of things that, that really irritate them. And although these, some of these things have been looked at in the past, it's quite clear that we need to rebalance things now more in favour of the consumer, put the consumer in the driving seat and actually do more to encourage a responsible culture of borrowing and lending. And these are some of the measures that consumers particularly say they welcome.

But the industry warns that there may be a price to pay for any attempt to tighten up on our flexible friends.

Credit cards need to be flexible. They need to be convenient. We need to make sure that they don't become inconvenient. And if some of these proposals come forward, that could put a cost on credit cards. Credit, the cost of credit is already expensive through things like fraud, debts, the wholesale cost of credit. And if credit cards become too expensive, they'll only be available to a limited number of people.

Whichever proposals become law, Britain's titanic debt burden will take decades to shift. Britain's total credit card debt is nearly 64 billion pounds. That's more than 1,000 pounds for every man, woman, and child in Britain, enough to buy 800 Cristiano Ronaldos, or fund England's NHS for eight months. This mountain of consumer debt is one of the main reasons why Britain's economy is still stuck in recession while France and Germany are already well on the path to recovery.

Glossary:

interest bearing debt: 有息负债，公司需要在约定时间向债权人归还本金和利息的负债，包括银行贷款、公司债、商业票据等短期融资工具。

tighten up on sth: to make a rule, law, or system more strict

come forward: to offer help to someone, or offer to do sth