Outlook: Credit Cards

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YOUR STARTER FOR 10. You have a choice of two credit cards: one, from Capital One Bank, levies a fee of 11.9 per cent APR on its accounts. The other, from Barclaycard, charges 19.9 per cent APR. Otherwise there is little to differentiate the two, apart from the fact that one is better known than the other.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem faced by Barclaycard, which announced yesterday that it is cutting the rate it charges holders of its card by 1 per cent from its previously-extortionate levels. The news, while no doubt welcome to Barclaycard's seven million customers, is unlikely to reverse the growing trend towards cheaper and more com- petitive …