"Gordon Brown effect" hits borrowers

Gordon Brown's Premiership has seen consumers hit hard with people paying more for credit cards, loans and mortgages and getting less for their savings since the Prime Minister stepped into no.10 Downing Street, according to MoneyExpert.com.

The independent financial comparison website says since Gordon Brown took office on the 27th June 2007, the average cost of each of the major high street financial products has soared.

Last June the average credit card came with an APR of 18.36% but over the last fifteen months this figure has jumped to 19.66%.

And while the average rate on a pre-Brown three year fixed mortgage was 6.12 per cent, it is now 6.51 per cent.

Similarly those people looking to borrow money will pay more now than they did before Gordon Brown came to power. Lenders charged on average 8.6 per cent interest on a £5,000 unsecured loan some 15 months ago, whereas today average rates are 0.8 per cent higher at 9.4 per cent.

And despite the launch of high profile current accounts paying rates that beat inflation banks are on average paying out less to people with cash in their current accounts. At the start of Gordon Brown's premiership the average current account paid 2.06% in credit interest but now this figure has fallen to 1.92%.

Sean Gardner, director of MoneyExpert.com, said: "It has been Armageddon in the financial markets ever since Gordon Brown came to power and it's not just fat cats that have suffered. We're all feeling the pain as banks have tried to balance their books or face oblivion."

The MoneyExpert.com analysis shows that the average person could be as much as £666.80 worse off since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister if they have only recently bought or updated typical high street financial products.

Sean Gardner added: "This is an illustration of how far we have come since the summer of last year. The cost of living has increased and it's more expensive to borrow money too.

"No wonder the Prime Minister is under pressure - it's inevitable that as some of the typical financial products get more expensive, more and more people feel the pinch. This is one of the clear signals that the credit crunch is definitely an everyman problem."