Credit card 0% offers 'will end'

UK credit card companies offering 0% deals on balance transfers and purchases are losing over £1bn a year and it has been suggested that these 0% offers will end soon.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) predicts that credit card companies will start to limit the special offers we see today to encourage people to stay longer by reducing their interest rates.

These lower interest rates will only be offered to “profitable” customers who are low risk. Consumers who are deemed as “rate tarts” will be excluded from these offers.

PwC added that the high-risk market will be one of the key sources of growth for the UK's credit card companies, with firms increasingly targeting the eight million British adults that can be classified as non-prime.

It estimates that the number of UK adults holding a credit card will increase by a further three to four million, or 10%, over the next few years.