Can you afford to have a credit balance on your credit card?

Credit card companies and banks in the UK have been up in arms about the number of people that are missing repayments, making late repayments, and defaulting on credit card debts, leaving them with a mountain of bad debt. However, rather than rewarding those that do not fall into bad debt with their credit cards, it seems as though some credit card issuers are more inclined to penalize them, leaving the consumer to feel that they just can't win.

In a recent announcement the MBNA Bank has stated that it may start to charge credit card customers who have cards that have a positive balance. According to the bank all credit cards should either have a debit balance, where the consumer owes money on the card, or should stand at zero. The balance on the credit cards, state MBNA officials, should not be a plus balance, where the cardholder has paid more than the actual limit of the card.

According to one official from MBNA: 'The card was never designed as a savings account. There are only a small number of people who will incur the charge and we think many of those don't have any intention of using their card in the future. We've had a couple of customers who have large balances on their accounts that they had forgotten about. They have stuffed the statements in the bottom drawer and haven't realised they have this money available to them.'

Consumers will be given a choice of what they can do with any credit balance on their cards before they are charged. This includes giving the amount of the credit balance to charity, simply spending the credit in order to bring the card back to zero or into debit, or transferring the credit balance into their current accounts.