Those U.K. Credit Card Bills May Be a Problem Waiting to Bite

The pace of consumer borrowing may raise a few eyebrows at the Bank of England if it keeps rising unchecked.

Unsecured lending — such as on credit cards — jumped an annual 9.1 percent in January, the fastest in a decade, according to data on Monday. In total, consumers took out 1.6 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) more than they repaid, the second-highest since mid-2005. Back then, the country was in its 14th year of uninterrupted growth, and we're nowhere near that now.