To be pissed that Barclaycard decreased my credit limit?

If you pay it off in full every month then they make minimal money from you and probably aren’t bothered about retaining you as a customer.

I just had a letter to say they were putting mine up. No idea why I only use it abroad.

I find Barclaycard very strict compared to other credit card companies. I’ve been a Barclays customer since high school (30 years ago) & am now a premier customer. Due to household income my salary can all be classed as disposable income, but they would only give me 16% of my annual income as a credit limit. I recently re-tried to increase it but they still said no. Instead I now use Amex as my main card clocking up lots of Avios airmiles instead. Their loss!

NatWest also did this to me a few years ago. Had the card nearly 30 years. Always paid off the balance but never got near the limit. I think one of the reasons is to reduce fraud exposure and also possibly to do with the Bank's balance sheet exposure. Credit limits are a commitment to lend by them so I assume this impacts on the money set aside for financial protection schemes.

Who dont you have a conversation with them? Surely that's the best way forward.

What principle is that exactly? Credit card companies can’t win. They are criticised for increasing limits and here is your account, that you don’t borrow near the limit, so they have reduced it and that’s wrong too apparently when in actuality it’s responsible on their part. If you were using the credit available then I would get your grievance but you don’t use it. You still have a cushion as your other card has increased the credit limit so I don’t understand why you’re bothered.

I had this with mine too. I only used it a couple of times a year, always paid it off in full at the next bill date. They simply thought I didn’t need it - and they had a point really. I called them and said I’d like to keep it, so they put it back up again. It really wasn’t a big deal.

Banks have to hold capital aside for credit (including credit cards), so if it’s not being used, they’d like to reallocate that capital elsewhere, but I’m 99% certain it won’t be an issue if you ask them to revert to the old limit if there have been no issues.

The only time that happened to me was when I rarely used the card. If you pay it off in full before interest hits, there's not really much in it for them though.

I'd ring them and ask.

If you pay it off in full every month, & don’t ever get close to the existing limit .. you are essentially not a good customer in that they make no money from you! They have a certain level of credit that they can extend across their client base .. they’d prefer to use it on customers they can make money from

Oops, quoted the OP. Sorry...

Amex keeps randomly increasing my limit every couple of years. It's now over 10k and, honestly I don't even remember ever borrowing more than a couple of grand. 99% of the time I pay my bill in full at the end of the month. Would definitely look I to it if credit limit is important for some reason.

Surely this notification is the warning?

But I do understand it's rather annoying in the circumstances you describe.

What do you need the limit for? It could be related to the increase that you had with your other provider. Bringing your overall lending to something that is seen as unaffordable.

If you aren’t using it they often reduce the limit
just go somewhere else, or ask them to review the limit

it’s part of responsible lending I believe where limits are reviewed and if they aren’t used they may reduce a limit

Barclays withdrew my overdraft facility completely because I never used it. Clearly that makes me a massive risk! But I wanted it there as a backup in case of emergency.

I now bank with Nationwide - who also have better interest rates on their savings accounts.

That might be why - you'd be too exposed with all of the credit available to you.

My overdraft limit was reduced, but that was probably because I'd built up significant savings, never gone anywhere near needing it - and they wanted to flog me unsecured loans for many thousands more instead.

More often than not, it’s cos you haven’t been seen to be using it as much. I know so cos it happened to me. I had a 15k dropped to 2.

Are you persistently in debt with them? Even if you're within your limit, if the overall balance isn't actually decreasing over a long period they are meant to act to protect you falling into hardship. One of the levers they pull to do this is to reduce your limit overtime, as you make a payment and lower the balance.

I was going to say this. If they see you have increased credit limit elsewhere maybe their criteria is that you can afford the sum of the 2 current credit limits and they therefore needed to decrease their limit to stay within their criteria to lend to you at all. They are all connected now you have this running credit references

I think that’s why Barclaycard did it to me. I kept it for emergencies.

It matters because it’ll affect her credit rating. Credit rating companies don’t like you using more than 25% of available credit. So using £1000 of a £4000 limit, fine. But if limit is dropped to £2000, she’s now using 50% - not fine

I’m sure this happened to me once just because I wasn’t using it.

I would contact them. I think they do these things because they think they are being helpful.😒 NatWest did similar to me on by reducing my overdraft limit on an overdraft I had never used. More or less said that thought I did not need it. Unless you income has dramatically reduced, I expect Barclays had the same reason.

It could be this... overall your affordability has decreased because the other card has increased your credit limit.