According to Reuters (London) some credit card companies have hiked their interest rates by more than 12%pa after the Office of Fair Trading forced them to reduce their default fees.

Typically the financial mammoths began to "rob Peter to pay Paul" offsetting their losses in fees by increasing their interest rates on their cards. Moneyfacts.co.uk reported that 19 credit card providers had increased their fees with Barclaycard the worst offender.

The loss in revenue for these providers is possibly in the realms of 300 million pounds per year so trying to recoup this revenue stream is going to be hard. Especially for those providers who relied heavily on default fees while offering low interest rate cards.

How consumers respond within the next couple of months will be telling for some card providers.