Financial News

• Brown dismisses housing crisis fears (09 04 2008 10:15)
• Mortgage hope offered by bank (09 04 2008 10:15)
• Consumer morale 'falls again' (09 04 2008 10:15)
• Bristol & West withdraws deals (09 04 2008 10:15)
• Retirees feel 'unhappy due to no longer working' (09 04 2008 10:15)
• Severn Trent to be fined £36m (08 04 2008 04:15)
• Brown to announce first time buyers help (08 04 2008 04:15)
• UK bank details 'for sale by thieves' (08 04 2008 04:15)
• Last 100% mortgage to disappear (08 04 2008 04:15)
• High earners 'shut out of market' (08 04 2008 04:15)

Subscribe!

Scottish Widows blames easy credit for debt fears

Young people might face bigger debt worries because of the ease at which they can take out credit cards and personal loans, Scottish Widows has suggested.

The insurer also said yesterday that parents are currently being forced to offer an average £12,500 of "financial aid" to their grown-up offspring.

According to the new Scottish Widows research, 42 per cent of these "adult children" were using parental handouts to service their debts - and 29 per cent were using the loans to fund a home purchase.

Savings expert at the firm Anne Young commented: "To a certain extent the results of the research are not surprising at all; I think we all probably know that parents have been handing money over to their children.

"A lot of children now are going into their working life with a lot of debt hanging over them…it's [partly] the proliferation of credit that is available now."

She added: "I don't think we really do enough in educating our young people to manage their credit."

Send this article to: