Credit card behaviour in 2025 sits inside a wider consumer credit shift:

• Consumer credit growth accelerated into late 2025.
• Credit card borrowing growth increased to 12.1% year-on-year (BoE-reported, as covered in mainstream reporting), implying households are relying more heavily on revolving credit.

Structural constraint: persistent debt regulation

The FCA has been explicit that revolving credit risk is not just “individual budgeting” — it is a systemic behavioural pattern, particularly when customers remain in persistent debt.

Under FCA rules introduced after its credit card work, firms must intervene where customers repeatedly pay more in interest/charges than principal over extended periods.

So what?

In 2025, credit card balances behave like a pressure vessel: when cost-of-living stress rises, the behaviour shows up first in revolving balances and minimum-payment dependence.

Working-age balances rise with age, peak pre-retirement, then drop sharply.

This reflects two forces happening at once:

• Structural capacity: older cohorts have higher limits and longer credit histories
• Behavioural pressure: mid-life cohorts carry the highest revolving burdens

Exhibit 3.1 — Average balance by age band

Interpretation

CCI suggests a lifecycle concentration of revolving debt:

• 46–55 and 56–65 cohorts carry the highest average balances
• younger cohorts carry smaller balances, but are still present in payoff journeys
• the sharp fall at 65+ implies either payoff completion, lower card usage, or reduced modelling activity

This matters commercially because the largest balances are not necessarily in the youngest, highest-risk cohort — they sit in the high-pressure mid-life stage, where debt is most “embedded” into household cashflow.

This chart shows which providers appear most in the dataset and what their average modelled balances look like.

Exhibit 4.1 — Average balance by provider (in-sample)

Interpretation

This is not “market share”. It’s a decision-surface signal:

• providers appearing here are overrepresented in payoff/restructuring journeys
• higher average balances often indicate either:
• higher typical credit limits (more embedded lending)
• greater carry behaviour (revolver persistence)
• or simply a particular customer segment concentration

For institutional readers, this is useful for:

• benchmarking balance exposure
• identifying where payoff intent might translate into refinancing pressure
• understanding which providers sit inside high-stress cohorts

Payoff intent is not evenly distributed.

It clusters where debt becomes painful enough to escape, but not so overwhelming that customers disengage.

Exhibit 5.1 — Payoff intent by age

Interpretation

The dominant payoff-intent cohort is:

✅ 46–55 (highest share)

That’s a powerful signal:

• this cohort is often managing mortgages, children, compressed household expenses
• payoff intent here acts like a stress indicator, not just financial “optimisation”

This aligns with the wider consumer credit environment, where mainstream reporting and credit charities point to households relying on credit to smooth rising costs.

Exhibit 5.1 — Average credit card balance by income band

Interpretation

Credit card balances rise with income, but not smoothly. In the CCI sample, the relationship looks more like a step-function than a straight line.

Lowest balances (sub-£3k):

• £12k–£24k: £2,750
• £45k–£54k: £2,833.33

Middle-income “carry zone” (£4k–£6k):

• £25k–£34k: £4,227.50
• £55k–£64k: £4,882.35
• £35k–£44k: £5,718.75
• £120k+: £5,000 (not the highest — important)

High balances cluster in upper-middle income bands:

• £65k–£74k: £7,142.86
• £105k–£114k: £7,400
• £75k–£84k: £10,600
• £85k–£94k: £13,100 (highest in this chart)

Key signal: the largest balances are not at the very top. The peak sits in the £75k–£94k region, which often reflects households with high spend capacity and active lifestyle credit usage (rather than ultra-high earners who may clear monthly or shift borrowing elsewhere).

Exhibit 7.1 — Average monthly payment behaviour

Interpretation

Monthly payments are not simply “what people can afford”. They are what people are willing to tolerate while carrying revolving debt.

In the CCI sample, average monthly payments vary sharply by age:

• 18–25: £272.22 (highest)
• 26–35: £26.00 (lowest)
• 36–45: £106.83
• 46–55: £133.37
• 56–65: £159.13
• 65+: (near-zero in this sample)

Two things stand out:

1. The youngest cohort is paying the most.

That is counter-intuitive, and suggests this group contains a sub-segment actively trying to clear balances (or a smaller sample with skew). Either way, it behaves more like repayment mode than “minimum-payment drifting”.

2. The 26–35 cohort is effectively under-paying.

At £26/month, this group sits far below every other age band, which is consistent with “carry + defer” behaviour.

This chart is best read as repayment posture, not affordability. It shows where repayments become active versus passive.

This is one of the highest-value charts on the entire CCI page.

It shows the repayment delta between:

• what users currently pay

vs

• what they would need to pay to actually exit revolving debt materially

Exhibit 8.1 — Payment stress gap (required vs actual)

Interpretation

This chart measures the repayment shortfall: what someone would need to pay to clear faster vs what they actually pay.

In the CCI sample, the gap is material in every group except the youngest:

• 18–25: Recommended £302.96 vs Actual £272.22 → Gap £30.74
• 26–35: Recommended £364.12 vs Actual £26.00 → Gap £338.12
• 36–45: Recommended £286.26 vs Actual £106.83 → Gap £179.43
• 46–55: Recommended £427.12 vs Actual £133.37 → Gap £293.75
• 56–65: Recommended £376.60 vs Actual £159.13 → Gap £217.47
• 65+: Recommended £50 vs Actual (near-zero) → Gap ~£50

What this implies:

1. 26–35 is the highest-risk repayment posture in this sample.

The gap (£338/month) is extreme. This is the classic “revolve indefinitely” signature.

2. 46–55 is under-paying despite high suggested repayments.

They face the highest recommended payments (£427/month) but pay £133, leaving a £294 gap.

3. 18–25 is the only cohort close to “on-track”.

Their gap is small (£31), which supports the earlier point: this cohort is behaving like active repayment, not drift.

This chart captures the single most important behavioural split in UK revolving credit:

Escaping debt vs maintaining it.

Exhibit 9.1 — Minimum vs payoff selection (behavioural split)

Interpretation

This chart captures an important behavioural divide: who chooses to tread water versus who chooses to clear.

In the CCI sample, payoff-selection peaks hard in mid-life:

Payoff selected (%):

• 26–35: 33.33%
• 36–45: 29.63%
• 46–55: 61.11% (highest by far)
• 56–65: 24.07%

Minimum selected (%):

• 18–25: 3.70%
• 26–35: 22.22%
• 36–45: 33.33% (highest minimum selection)
• 46–55: 27.78%
• 56–65: 12.96%

The behavioural story is clear:

• 46–55 are the “repayment pivot” cohort.

They are the most likely to choose payoff behaviour (61.11%) — probably driven by tighter planning pressure (mortgage, kids, retirement horizon).

• 36–45 are the most “minimum-normalised”.

This group has the highest minimum-selection rate (33.33%) and only 29.63% payoff selection, suggesting carry behaviour is culturally normal in this band.

Credit card borrowing growth rose sharply into late 2025, reflecting higher reliance on revolving credit in household budgets.

Bank of England: interest cost + borrowing growth (context for 2025)

From the BoE Money and Credit release (Oct 2025):

• Effective interest rate on interest-charging credit cards: 21.42%
• Annual growth rate of credit card borrowing: 10.5%
• Monthly net borrowing on credit cards was ~£0.7bn in that release