Independent financial adviser, Alan Steele commented, “Debt has always been a problem for a minority of people. One of current problems is willingness of bank managers to hand out loans and credit cards, which means this minority has increased, but majority are coping with their debt.”

It remains to be seen whether nation’s optimistic mood, recently reflected in a Mori survey carried out for Prudential, in its ability to cope with levels of personal debt is long or short term. The report showed consumers are still failing to save, with one in five people saying they had no plans to increase amount they put away.

Jackie Ronson, of Prudential ( http://www.prudential.com/ ), said that many people are viewing their disposable income as decreasing, and yet they are happy to maintain their current level of debt, "add to that continued concern about pensions in UK, and we are looking at people who are likely to seriously struggle in retirement."

Additional Resources Scotsman ( http://business.scotsman.com/ ) BBC ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/ )

The application process is a lot longer with personal secured loans than with unsecured loans, due to fact that your loan provider will need to value your home.

The primary advantages of a personal secured loan are that:

They offer lower interest rates. Because loan is secured and lender is guaranteed to recover their money in almost any circumstance APR (the interest rate) tends to be less than with an unsecured loan.

The circumstances in which one is able to secure a loan on property are more dependent upon equity in property rather than past credit history and hence individuals with adverse credit histories (such as County Court Judgements and credit card defaults) are not excluded from secured lending.

A personal secured loan represents an efficient debt management tool because it is possible to spread payments to a term of up to 25 years, it is therefore possible to consolidate any existing borrowing and reduce monthly outgoings to such an extent that considerable extra income is made available to household budget.

The majority of personal secured loans can be arranged without fees therefore personal secured loan often represents a cheaper lending option than a remortgage due to fees usually associated with remortgage product.

They are easier to be approved for. In a typical personal secured loan, home is used as collateral against loan, meaning that should you be unable to maintain loan repayments, your home will be at risk.

You may freely reprint this article provided author's biography remains intact:

John Mussi is the founder of Direct Online Loans who help UK homeowners find the best available loans via the www.directonlineloans.co.uk website.