Britons have biggest debt in Europe - Datamonitor

Britons hold one third of all the unsecured debt in western Europe, with the average person owing just over 3,000 stg, a report by business analysts Datamonitor showed. This figure is almost double the average of the rest of the region, with the average UK citizen owing 3,008 stg against 1,558 stg for the average western European, Datamonitor said. They attributed this to the UK's "buy-now, pay later culture" and "insatiable appetite for credit". In contrast, countries in mainland Europe have more of a culture of saving, with France and Germany particularly averse to debt, the report said. Overall, the UK consumer credit market was worth 313 bln eur last year, while the next biggest western European market was France, worth 143 bln stg, it said. Meanwhile, separate research released today by the debt advisory service One Advice indicated that more than 100,000 UK citizens between the ages of 18 and 24 had credit card debts in excess of 5,000 stg. The author of the Datamonitor report, Paul Marsh, suggested that lenders should be looking to expand into other areas such as France, Ireland, Spain and particularly Turkey and Greece as the UK reaches saturation point. "These markets are where the real opportunities exist, but only for players brave enough to enter," he said. "The UK is an increasingly difficult place to do business due to the highly indebted nature of the population. "Yet in many other European countries, consumers are not as indebted and the markets are not as sophisticated." Between 2001 and 2005, Turkey experienced the biggest expansion in new consumer credit lending of 52 pct, followed by Greece at 29 pct, according to the report. Datamonitor predicts that Turkey will continue to see the fastest growth in western Europe between now and 2010 at nearly 18 pct, with gross advances projected to reach 169 bln eur.