so car balances and spend they have decreased since December. The spend on credit cards and

Ganyway was £669, though it a 12% drop after keeping during Christmas. But again if I look to

12 months previously it's also 17% higher than it was in Ganyway 25. So the confidence I've been

talking about in my market reports the last few months it's still there we're still seeing it

in the customer's spend, the spend continues to increase and since the third lockdown we've

definitely seen strong growth. We've seen some of the peaks and talks in the US with Canadian spend

plans as well. I assume it's fair to say that these are not the best of times for consumers.

Fuel prices are rising at rates more recently associated with new COVID cases.

Inflation is a global problem likely to be fought with rising interest rates and there are many

consumers who really needed that V-shape pandemic recovery we were once promised. Welcome to

How to Lin-Manita's Drangers with Brendan Lagrange. When looking forward we might allow ourselves to

be distracted by the shiny and new and innovator but when we want to know how consumers are doing

today it's worth remembering that there are still more than 60 million credit cards in the UK

and that those represent a significant pool of data. It's a pool of data that few can tap with

as much nuance as FICA who systems provide the infrastructure or many of the largest card

issues. So in this episode I speak to Liz Radek, principal consultant within the credit life cycle

practice of FICA advises and author of the UK Cards Trends report which for January 22 at least

still showed strong financial management by consumers but perhaps shadowed by affordability

concerns as fuel and other costs rise.

Hi, so Liz Radek, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to be speaking to you. When I first landed

in the UK or now three years ago one of the first things I was introduced to was your card

strings report and for me it immediately became a useful benchmark. So yeah it's a pleasure to have

...