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The figure of £700m is the lowest figure for consumer credit since December 2021. Despite this, the annual growth rate of total consumer credit increased slightly from 7.1% to 7.2% – the highest figure since March 2019.

Broken down, the annual interest rate for mortgage loans fell from 13.2% to 12.1%, while the annual growth rate for other types of consumer credit increased from 4.6% to 5.2%. In addition to this, the interest rate on new personal loans has fallen by 13 basis points to 6.75% – but remains higher than the December 2021 interest rate of 6.27%.

In response to this, head of data and analytics of Equifax UK, Paul Heywood said: “The increase in demand for credit from consumers must be met with more caution from credit companies.

“This service has a duty of care in these difficult times, and lenders must be confident that customers meet their obligations and are not forced to have bad debts. But going too far in the other direction, and lending to high-quality customers, can also cause problems for those who are in the most difficult situations.

“Looking forward to next week, all eyes will be on the Bank of England and its decision – which it has to make now in the absence of the Halloween Budget. A move by the government that encouraged the markets, but which also affected the financial situation in the UK.”

Households, meanwhile, invested a further £8.1bn in banks and building societies – compared to £3.2bn in August. This was the largest increase in household income since June 2021.

Within this measure, inflows rose to £3.4bn from £1.1bn in August while interest and non-interest bearing loans rose to £3bn from £700m, and £4.1bn from £1.6bn in September. respectively.

In September households also put £800m into National Savings and Investment (NS&I) accounts – compared to £1.1bn in August, while combined inflows into NS&I deposits and accounts in September were strong at £8.9bn, more than the monthly net. a flow of £5.3bn in the last six months.

Looking at business lending, UK non-financial businesses borrowed £2.6bn of bank and corporate loans in September – compared to £7.6bn of borrowing in August. Of this, large non-financial businesses borrowed £2.7bn, compared to £7.7bn in August while total borrowing by non-financial small and medium enterprises (SMEs) remained at £100m.

As for large enterprises, the annual interest rate on borrowing increased by one percentage point to 9.3%, while for SMEs it increased by 0.6 percentage points to -3.7%.

Looking at mortgage lending figures, mortgage lending by individuals remained at £6.1bn in September – above the six-month average of £5.7bn. In addition, net lending rose to £27bn in September from £25.9bn in August – while net lending was little changed at £20.6bn in September.

In line with this, home purchase approvals – a measure of future borrowing – fell sharply to 66,800 from 74,400 in August but were above the six-month average of 67,200. Loan approvals also fell to 49,100 from 49,500 but were well above the six-month high of 47,100.

In terms of interest rates on new mortgages, this rose by 29% to 2.84% in September – the biggest monthly increase since December 2021 when Bank Rates began to rise.