Britain's credometer reaches boiling point

While we already owe a disturbing £55.6 billion on our credit cards, but this is small change compared to the further £102 billion people could borrow if they chose to max out their cards.

Steve Willey, head of credit cards at moneysupermarket.com, said: "The fact people could blow over £150 billion is alarming. This is surely a big wake-up call to all providers that they must take into account a person's total potential debt when they apply for credit cards.

"It's all well and good to give someone a £5,000 credit limit if they can afford it, but huge potential problems occur when that one person is given cards by many different providers each with a £5,000 limit.

"Some providers are acting responsibly by refusing applications due to a person's total credit limit on all their cards, but others are still assessing things as though that person doesn't have another card.

"In many countries, banks will give you a card on condition that you close a card with another provider. This is something the banks or Financial Services Authority need to consider.

"To have £158 billion available to spend on credit is crazy. To put it into context, that is more than the Government spends annually on health and defence put together.

"Having credit is no bad thing as long as it used prudently. These figures show, on the whole, consumers are behaving sensibly but many banks aren't.

"It is smart of people to take out a new card with a long zero per cent purchase offer or generous cashback scheme, but they should be compelled to close the card it replaces.

"If the banks aren't prepared to do this then hopefully people will have the discipline not to have too many credit cards - just the latest and best ones."