Hundreds of thousands of people in Wales are struggling to pay their bills as the cost of living crisis continues to bite, shows new research from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The regulator for the UK’s financial services sector said that in January around 300,000 people in Wales had missed bills or loan payments in at least three of the previous six months. This was an increase on the previous survey in May last year when it as 200,000. The latest figure equates to 14% of people in Wales compared to 11% in the UK as a whole.
For the UK as a whole it rose to 5.6 million. The number of people who felt that making these kinds of payments was a heavy burden jumped from 7.8 million (15%) to 10.9 million (21%).