The average interest rate charged on a credit card has risen again, to 16.79%, says the Bank of England.

That puts the average rate at its highest level since February 2002, although the Bank rate remains at its historic low of 0.5%.

However, other figures from the Bank of England reveal that banks are still writing off huge losses on their credit card customers. The Bank said that £5.3bn was written-off in 2010.

"Write-offs probably reflect historic lending on cards," said David Black of financial analysts Defaqto.

"In recent years card companies have been much more careful about who they will lend to, in terms of affordability and over-indebtedness."
With defaults by customers running at approximately 10% of all credit card lending, card companies have used wider....Read more Here