Consumers spent a record sum on credit and debit cards in the final three months of last year as borrowers increasingly used plastic to pay their household expenses.
Credit and debit card spending rose to £91.5 billion, up from £86.6 billion in the three months to last September.
The Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs), the body that represents lenders and credit card companies, says that £32.4 billion was spent on credit cards between October and December last year, the second-highest sum in history.
Over the same period, £59 billion was spent through debit cards, the highest since their records began in 2000.
Chris Tapp, of Credit Action, the debt charity, said: “Retail figures were down over Christmas, yet credit card debt is still rising.
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“This indicates that we are seeing people shifting spending on to credit cards as household expenses mount up.
“This is not good news. People using their credit cards to meet their monthly bills is the first sign of a spiral of debt trouble.”
Mr Tapp said that consumers who are using their credit card to cover household expenses should seek help immediately.
Apacs said that repayments of credit card debts, calculated by comparing the total amount of repayments to the total sums lent during the same period, was 96 per cent last year.
This is lower than in 2006, when repayments were at 97 per cent. Repayments in December fell to 86 per cent.
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However, cheques are becoming ever more unfashionable. There was a 9.3 per cent decline in the number of cheques used during 2007, Apacs said.