UK Consumer Credit Hits Record £1.88 Trillion as Card Borrowing Surges

UK consumer credit balances have climbed to a record high, according to the first UK Credit Industry Insights Report from TransUnion, a quarterly analysis the credit bureau already runs as an established reference point in the US and Canada.

Outstanding consumer credit reached £1.88 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, up 3.7% year-on-year. Yet the report's picture is more nuanced than that headline suggests: the average debt-to-income ratio sits at its lowest level in two decades, and serious delinquency (90 or more days past due) affects 3.34% of consumers, around 1.35 million people, still comfortably below pre-pandemic norms.

Demand and competition are driving the growth. Credit card originations surged 26% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2025, with the increase concentrated among new entrants to the market rather than existing borrowers refinancing. That expansion carries a warning sign: serious delinquency on unsecured loans has reached 4.17%, its highest level since the fourth quarter of 2021, as lenders push further into higher-risk segments.

The report also underlines how under-penetrated the UK market remains. Just 70.1% of British adults hold an open credit product, a striking outlier against the United States at 97% and Canada at 96%, pointing to significant room for lenders to grow credit participation.

There is a cautionary forward-looking note, too. Consumer financial optimism, which hit a multi-year high in the first quarter, has already fallen back in the second, which TransUnion attributes to energy price pressures from the Iran conflict feeding through into inflation expectations.

TransUnion plans to publish the report quarterly, giving UK lenders a recurring read on the consumer credit cycle at a moment when growth and risk are rising in tandem.