Barclaycard imposes twenty pounds fee

Yet another credit card giant has jumped on the bandwagon of charging customers that do not use their credit cards regularly enough. Barclaycard, one of the major credit cards used in the UK, will now be imposing a fee of twenty pounds on accounts that have not been used regularly – a move that has already been made by a number of other credit card companies.

It is thought that customers will need to meet a set spending target on their credit card accounts in order to avoid the fee, and those that fail to meet this limit will be made to pay the fee. Also, customers that have not used their credit card in a year are also likely to have to pay the twenty pounds. The new fee could affect around twenty million customers, and this could lead to millions of pounds in extra revenue for Barclaycard as a result of these fees.

An official from Barclay card stated: 'We will do everything we can to improve the deal we give people, encourage them to use our card, not someone else's and avoid fees. As a last resort, we are considering a fee for a minority of customers that simply do not use their card. Details aren't yet final but we expect the amount to be between £10 and £20 – less than £2 per month.'

Many credit card companies have imposed these fees as a way of recouping losses that have come about as a result of the cap on penalty fees, which was enforced by regulatory bodies in the UK last year. Credit card companies have argued that they have to charge the fee, as they are paying to service the account of a customer that is not using the card and therefore not making them any money.

Tom Smith
12th June 2007