Rise of alternative credit could mitigate low consumer confidence
Jun 10, 2013 Simon Williams
Throughout Europe, there have been some signs in recent months that the continent could be emerging from the struggles of the Great Recession.
Unfortunately, recent statistics revealed that progress is nearly nonexistent in the United Kingdom, at least as far as consumers are concerned.
"The fall back [in consumer confidence], even though by [it's] only one point, implies the recovery in confidence has stalled, and real recovery looks a long way away," said Nick Moon, Managing Director of Social Research at GfK, Press TV reported.
U.K. consumers are less confident than their counterpoints across Europe, with findings including:
- A 1-point drop in GfK's April consumer confidence index, and a 4-point drop in a similar survey conducted by Nielsen between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013.
- 87 percent of British residents believe the country is still in recession, according to the Nielsen survey, up from 82 percent at the end of 2012. Meanwhile, the amount of consumers who believe the country will be passed the recession in a year also increased.
- Savings are down, while the amount of residents struggling for cash has climbed.
For many British consumers, waiting for the U.K. to get past the recession seems like waiting for pigs to fly.
Unfortunately, the reality is that a lot of residents are struggling right now to meet daily demands - purchasing groceries, paying for bills, meeting car or college loan demands, and so on and so forth. But for people who are underbanked, with credit scores at or near the subprime level, receiving traditional funding simply isn't an option at the moment.
These people should look into alternative credit options instead.
Many alternative lenders use scoring methods like Payment Reporting Builds Credit, which looks at a variety of financial factors - like a person's ability to pay utility bills on time - rather than just credit scores. This has made funding available to countless people at or near the subprime credit level.
