According to the latest ING DIRECT Financial Wellbeing Index, 65 per cent of  families feel that they have become better off financially during 2011. Consumers have spent the year consolidation debts, repaying loans including car loans, home loans, credit cards etc. and saving more towards the future.

But while the majority of consumers interviewed believe that they have improved their financial position during 2011 and are confident of achieving the same thing in 2012, 32 per cent of households shave reported that their family finances are worse off today than they were a year earlier with escalating debt levels and higher monthly loan repayments.

A common hurdle reported by 71 per cent was increased food, power and transport costs.

While Australians recognise that while they cannot control the direction of the economy they can take positive action to strengthen their own finances by acting responsibly in relation to personal loans and debts.

An OECD ranking of household savings rates places Australia at number 5 from the 23 countries surveyed, with 10.4 per cent of household disposable income going into savings in 2011.

Switzerland has come up as the country with the highest annual rate of saving, with a savings rate of 12.1 per cent in 2011, followed by Sweden (11.7 per cent), Germany (11.3 per cent) and Belgium (10.7 per cent).

Back in 2006, before we were affected by the GFC, Australian household savings rate was 2.1 per cent. Its OECD ranking that year was 16th.

OECD economists are expecting that Australian households will maintain their high savings rate. The forecast for the current year is 10.3 per cent and for 2013 the expected rate is 10.5 per cent.

Recent legislative changes make it illegal for debt collectors to continue to hassle a debtor once asked in writing not to do so.

The two agencies are said to have continued to contact the two Melbourne women after receiving written requests that they either stop contacting them or take legal action against them

The Consumer Action Law Centre is bringing the cases in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, on behalf of the women.

The agencies involved are Australian Receivables Limited and Baycorp Collections.

This will be seen as a test case for Debt Collectors and their debt collection strategies.

Baycorp Collections, chasing three debts totalling $2516, has been accused of “undue harassment” in calling more than 10 times after receiving a written request to desist. Australian Receivables Limited, chasing two debts worth $594, is accused of contacting a woman more than nine times after it was sent a letter.

Neither agency had gone to court to recover the money.

Evergreen Finance are a provider of personal loans and personal finance across Australia and New Zealand. They will develop consumer finance products that will be offered to borrowers directly through the  Firstfolio’s national network of finance brokers.

Speaking to The Adviser, Firstfolio’s chief executive officer Mark Forsyth said the joint venture was another step towards the company’s overall goal of creating a holistic and diversified business.Evergreen have developed advanced processing systems that facilitate and assist in the processing of  personal loans.Currently there is significant borrower demand for such products.  The partnership reflects our strategy of introducing additional financial products through Firstfolio’s significant national distribution network,” Mr Forsyth said.

If your client for a home loan is looking for car loans , bad credit car loans or personal loans then it only makes sense that the broker is also able to offer such a service.

Looking forward, Mr Forsyth said the company planned to diversify and ramp up its presence in other markets including the self-managed super fund space.

“We have an SMSF product, but we haven’t really promoted it. I think this is going to be a market that will take off, but for the moment we are just taking a wait and see approach.”

The ABS today said the seasonally-adjusted commitments were down from $7.806 billion in October. This includes, personal loans, car loans, credit cards and the like.

Commercial finance overall also declined during November. There was a drop of 9.6 per cent to $33.098 billion, seasonally adjusted, from $36.624 billion in October.

Lease finance was up 15.1 per cent to $490 million, compared with $426 million October.

Home Loans taken out by owner occupiers increased by 2.2 per cent to $13.790 billion, from $13.487 billion in October.

New figures from the RBA issued today, show outstanding credit card debt has exceeded $50 billion for the first time in November, with $36.3 billion of the total accruing interest. It is no wonder that so may Australians are looking for debt consolidation loans.

With 15 million cards on issue, the average debt level per credit card has reached about $3333.

The amount of credit card debt owed by Australians has increased sharply over the past ten years with the most significant increase ocuring over the past 3 years.

As the Australian economy has steadily grown over the past decade, it’s logical that credit card balances have also move upwards – the question is whether they have gone up too much.

Unfortunately unsecured loans beyond a couple thousand generally have the same lending criteria no matter which lender the borrower makes an application through. There is simply no such financial product as a bad credit unsecured personal loan or a low doc unsecured personal loan.

If you have been declined for a personal loan with a bank because you have some paid defaults on your credit report, you will also be declined through other lenders that you may approach. What will affect your ability to qualify is your ability to offer some security for this loan – eg. real-estate or a motor vehicle.

If you have a problem with your financials, ie your tax returns are not up-to-date, there are no low doc personal loans available. Any loans you may qualify for will need to be secured by real-estate.

Now in the post Christmas period many more Aussies are struggling with recently acquired  credit card debts. Many more are now actively looking for debt consolidation loans.

Even if you find it difficult to qualify for debt consolidation loans it is important to maintain monthly repayments to ensure that your debts and loans are in order.

Financial Counselling Australia executive director Fiona Guthrie says the best way to deal with this debt “is sit down and go back to basics”.

“You might need to reassess your spending habits; you might need to look at whether there are ways to increase your income, selling assets,” she says. “You have to get your credit card under control because it’s incredibly stressful to have debt hanging over your head, so having a plan is probably the first thing to do.”

Taking short cuts is not always a good idea.

While interest free balance transfers may sound like a good idea – it is important to be careful as these require the borrower to follow a strategy.

An investigation by the consumer watchdog Choice has confirmed that in most cases retailers are not providing sufficient information about the costs of retail credit when it is offered to consumers.

Some deals included fees of as much as 87.6 per cent of the cost of the item, Choice found.

A Braun shaver retailing at $549.95 could end up costing close to $700 with a David Jones three-year interest free offer if paid for using the retailer’s own StoreCard, and almost $1000 using the Amex David Jones card.

A Legislative loophole appears to allow retailers not to disclose the full cost of credit they are offering to consumers at the time that the credit contract is signed.

Tricky marketing always makes interest free deals look great but its easy to end up paying a lot more than the original price of the item – in some cases twice as much as the item originally cost.

She said five of the six major retailers Choice looked at gave incomplete or wrong information.

Consumers should be especially careful of buy now pay later deals and installment repayments. In many cases they would find it cheaper to take out a personal loan for this purchase than to agree to one of the finance offers at the stores.

Store cards generally come with an annual fee of as much as $100. Furthermore the retailer is not required to remind the consumer when their interest free period is over – so if you forget this can be a very expensive experience.

The biannual survey by data intelligence company Veda, discovered that 4 out of 5 Australians are worried about their ability to meet debt repayments in the future. This is a significant increase from 3 our of 4  this time last year.

Given the global economic woes and economic problems locally, many businesses are closing their doors leaving twenty percent of survey respondents are struggling with their current levels of debts.

However, about 29 per cent of this sub group were considering applying for more credit in the next six months, the survey found.

It is a worry that consumers already heavily in debt are looking to take on further debts in order to maintain their current lifestyle and not fall into arrears with car loans, home loans, credit cards, etc.

The survey found people aged 25-34 were the most worried about their ability to repay debt and the most likely to borrow more in the next six months.

About 70 per cent of this age group had received help from a family member to repay debts compared to about 35 per cent for the rest of the population.