Loan Consolidation in UK

Loan Consolidation involves putting your loans into one particular place to get the best rate of interest. A common example of how loan consolidation can help is if you have credit card debt that you pay 17% interest. If you can take out another loan at a lower interest rate then you can save yourself considerable sums of money over the course of a year. For example if you moved £5,000 from a credit card debt to an unsecured loan at 7% you would effectively save £500 per year from moving and consolidating your debt. One of the best unsecured loans at the moment is offered by Northern Rock at 6.5%

Best Unsecured Loan Deals UK

A very good unsecured loan deal at the moment is offered by Northern Rock. They offer loan rates of 6.5% for loans between £1,000 and £25,0000.

Unsecured loans can be taken out with a fixed interest rate for the whole period meaning that you know what the repayments will be over the course of the loan term. Unsecured loans are usually a little more expensive because the lender has less security.

As with all unsecured loans a credit check will be necessary before the bank agrees to the loan.

12 Month Interest Free Barclay Credit Card

I am always looking for good credit card deals to switch my balance over. If you are paying a standard credit card rate of 15% or more, you should definitely looking into switching it to a lower credit card deal.

Barclays have a credit card deal that offers 12 months interest free on balance transfers. This is a very good deal because it saves the hassle of changing every 6 months. There is a 2.5% handling fee, but that is quite low. It is effectively the same as borrowing a certain amount for an annual interest rate of 2.5% which is slightly less than the UK rate of inflation at 2.7%

Barclays

Student Debt Increases - More Loans needed to graduate

The golden days of being a student in the UK are over. Gone are the generous government grants, which enabled a student to live within his means.

A combination of higher living costs, tuition fees, and the means testing of government grants means that the average student is leaving university with a debt of £10,000. Research by the Bank Barclays suggests by 2010 this figure could rise to nearly £30,000.

Students should take out the maximum amount of Student Loans. Typically the interest on a student loan is very low, about the rate of inflation. It is much better to borrow on this interest scale than borrow on credit cards and bank loans. Another benefit of student loans is that you don't have to pay them back until you are earning a significant salary.

For more information on reducing your personal debt burden

Personal Loan Deals with Virgin Finance

Virgin Finance have an attractive deal here for unsecured loans. It enables a borrower to borrow up to £25,000 at an average rate of 7.3% APR*. This is a good rate for an unsecured loan.

If you are a home owner, typically you would be better off avoiding a personal loan like this, as if you remortgaged your house you could borrow more at a lower rate.

Virgin Personal Loans