South East: 40% of adults worried about personal debt in 'contactless era'

Two in five (39%) of adults in the South East are worried about their current level of debt, while a similar proportion (40%) say they sometimes or often struggle to make it to payday.

The figures, from the latest in the long-running R3/ComRes surveys of over 2,000 British adults regarding personal debt concerns, give an insight into the current position of the country’s personal finances.

The number of adults in the South East who are  worried about their current level of debt has risen by four percentage points since June 2016 (from 34% to 39%) and those who say they sometimes or often struggle to make it to payday has risen by five points since June 2016 (from 35% to 40%).

Mike Pavitt, chairman of R3's Southern Committee and partner and head of the corporate restructuring and insolvency group at Paris Smith in Southampton, said: “The continued availability of cheap money and only low levels of wage growth have contributed to a significant proportion of British adults building up a sizeable amount of debt in the years after the financial crisis. The latest increase in personal insolvency figures suggest that people are continuing to struggle to pay their debts and their worries are not waning.

“Credit cards are consistently the leading cause of worry for those with debts and this survey discovered that number has risen from 39% in June 2016 to 51% now. Contactless payments and payment through your mobile phone are likely to be disconnecting users from how much they are charging to their card. The ease of these purchase processes make it very simple for people to not realise that their debt is growing.”

Aside from credit card debt being the source of a worry among adults worried about their current level of debt, bank loans (18%), mortgage repayments (17%) and overdrafts (15%) were also cited.