Credit card issuers Barclaycard, the Co-operative Bank, Egg and Abbey have announced that they are to join forces and increase the level of data sharing about their customers, in an attempt to better identify people who may be getting into financial difficulties.

Although some information has long been shared via credit reference agencies, such as missed or late payments, the companies now plan to report much more information that will help the industry as a whole to provide credit more responsibly.

The newly shared information will include such ‘behavioural’ data as how much is spent on the card each month compared to how much is repaid, any payments which fail such as bounced
cheques, and also for the first time information on increased or changed credit limits.

Debt counselling agencies including Citizens Advice have welcomed the move, and it is expected that more credit card issuers will join the scheme, with MBNA and Nationwide already expressing strong support in principle.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2005 at 9:59 pm and is filed under General Credit Card News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.