Car loans, low rates, second mortgages: all the ingredients for a new credit crunch (UK)

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Officials at the Bank have a growing list of concerns. Not only is there the second mortgage problem and the number of car loans: figures show consumer spending on unsecured credit has also rocketed in the last year. In March alone, the amount UK consumers owed on loans and cards grew by £1.9bn, the highest figure in 11 years.

Households are known to have increased their reliance on short-term unsecured loans to buy cars and furniture, and to kit out new kitchens. Some use them to maintain their lifestyle in the face of a decade of flat wages. Unfortunately, another group use credit to pay the monthly rent.

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Try as they might, the UK's two big high street lenders cannot put the financial crisis behind them. Last week, when Lloyds Banking Group was congratulating itself over its return to the private sector, it was still being haunted by the fraud perpetrated at the Reading branch of HBOS, the hotshot lender it rescued in 2008. To add to the pressure, Noel Edmonds, the TV celebrity, is leading the campaign for compensation for the victims of the fraud which took place in the run-up to the financial crisis.

This week, Royal Bank of Scotland will be transported back to those calamitous days of 2008. A high court judge will begin hearing a claim for compensation from investors who backed a £12bn cash call by RBS in April 2008 -- only for the Edinburgh-based institution to be bailed out by taxpayers six months later.