The emerging perils of changing credit cards

Moving your credit card balance to an interest-free deal is a good idea, but is can often be more difficult than it sounds.

Though there are nearly 200 balance transfer offers out on the market, you could have a much more limited choice.

This is because a handful of banks offer a variety of credit cards under other brand names, and if you already have one of their other cards you will not be able to take advantage of the interest-free deal, which is reserved for new customers only.

About a quarter of the deals come from MBNA, which issues credit cards on behalf of the Alliance % Leicester and Dunfermline Building Society among others, as well as their own cards.

This also applies if you have a card from the same banking group, such as Natwest and the Royal Bank of Scotland or Halifax and Bank of Scotland (HBos), which is also behind other companies cards such as Amazon and Norwich & Peterborough.

However credit card users should be warned that having another credit card on your credit record could result in you being stuck paying interest on the debt you’ve run up on the card for another month while you are waiting for your new card to arrive.

Balance transfer offers are not as good a deal as they once were. Most of the longest interest-free deals charge a fee of around 3pc of the amount moved, amounting to £53,77 on the average credit card debt of around £1,795. Most fees on the market remain uncapped.