A huge increase in the amounts borrowed by already indebted households in Britain and the US to buy new vehicles is fuelling fears that “sub-prime cars” could ignite the next financial crash.
British households borrowed a record £31.6bn in 2016 to buy cars, up 12% on the year before, said the Finance and Leasing Association on Friday. Nine out of 10 private car buyers are now using personal contract plans (known as PCPs), which have boomed since interest rates fell to historic lows.
Under these cheap leasing deals, buyers pay a small deposit and then commit to making a monthly payment for the next three years with the option to buy or hand back the car at the end. The rise of PCPs helps to explain rocketing car sales in Britain despite flat or falling household incomes. A record 2.7m new cars were sold in Britain last year – the fifth year in a row of rising sales. Per head, the British are buying more new cars than any other large country in Europe.
