Best buy unsecured loans changing daily

The following increases have been made:

Black Horse has increased rates by up to 9% - up to 36.9% APR for loans of £1,000-£2,999 and 25.9% APR for loans of £5,000-£7,499

Bank of Ireland - from 8.9% APR to 10.7% APR - up 1.8%

Bradford & Bingley, Lloyds TSB, Marks and Spencer have all increased unsecured personal loans by 1%

Barclaycard (from 7.8% APR to 8.4% APR - up 0.60%)

Asda (from 7.4% APR to 7.9% APR - up 0.5%)

Sainsbury's Finance (from 7.7% APR to 7.9% APR - up 0.2%)

Louise Bond, Personal Finance Manager at uSwitch.com, comments: "As the news agenda overflows with the global financial meltdown, a plethora of loan rate increases have been implemented in the past four weeks. Lenders have increased unsecured personal loans by as much as 9% APR making borrowing even more costly for consumers.

"Personal loan "best buys" are changing every day which demonstrates just how unpredictable and volatile the current climate really is. Following recent rate increases, both Asda and Barclaycard have fallen from the best buys for a loan of £10,000 over five years. In fact, a few weeks ago, Asda was topping the table with its typical rate of 7.4% APR, but now at 7.9% APR it falls to 5th place with Abbey.

"In the summer months we kissed goodbye to sub-7% APR loans when the remaining six providers dropped out of this bracket but the sub-8% offering is still prominent. Overall, the loan market is vast but there are still some good deals out there so consumers should still shop around."